Skip to main content

Full text of "Forbidden to Marry: A Novel"

See other formats 


Google 



This is a digital copy of a book that was preserved for generations on library shelves before it was carefully scanned by Google as part of a project 

to make the world's books discoverable online. 

It has survived long enough for the copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one that was never subject 

to copyright or whose legal copyright term has expired. Whether a book is in the public domain may vary country to country. Public domain books 

are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture and knowledge that's often difficult to discover. 

Marks, notations and other maiginalia present in the original volume will appear in this file - a reminder of this book's long journey from the 

publisher to a library and finally to you. 

Usage guidelines 

Google is proud to partner with libraries to digitize public domain materials and make them widely accessible. Public domain books belong to the 
public and we are merely their custodians. Nevertheless, this work is expensive, so in order to keep providing tliis resource, we liave taken steps to 
prevent abuse by commercial parties, including placing technical restrictions on automated querying. 
We also ask that you: 

+ Make non-commercial use of the files We designed Google Book Search for use by individuals, and we request that you use these files for 
personal, non-commercial purposes. 

+ Refrain fivm automated querying Do not send automated queries of any sort to Google's system: If you are conducting research on machine 
translation, optical character recognition or other areas where access to a large amount of text is helpful, please contact us. We encourage the 
use of public domain materials for these purposes and may be able to help. 

+ Maintain attributionTht GoogXt "watermark" you see on each file is essential for in forming people about this project and helping them find 
additional materials through Google Book Search. Please do not remove it. 

+ Keep it legal Whatever your use, remember that you are responsible for ensuring that what you are doing is legal. Do not assume that just 
because we believe a book is in the public domain for users in the United States, that the work is also in the public domain for users in other 
countries. Whether a book is still in copyright varies from country to country, and we can't offer guidance on whether any specific use of 
any specific book is allowed. Please do not assume that a book's appearance in Google Book Search means it can be used in any manner 
anywhere in the world. Copyright infringement liabili^ can be quite severe. 

About Google Book Search 

Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers 
discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web 

at |http: //books .google .com/I 









..1 .* 



\ 



-» ts. 



1?" 

* A 






1 






•40, 



.a" 






•» 



:>. 



7- •• 



-V 

If 



V 



; 



r • ; 



H*> W 



A 

»' 
'i 



r 



/ 1 1' , 






t 

• I 

V. 



I 
•f*. 



i' 






'1 . 







K ' •• 



. **■ 



'^ X- 



«^ 



■u . 



■*• 




6000731 55R 



FORBIDDEN TO MARRY, 



p. V. WHITE & CO.'S 

SELFCT NOVELS. 

Crown 8i'o, clothe 35. 6c?, each. 

The FollowingYolumesof the Series areNowBeady, 

And can be obtained «/ nil liookxellers in Town 
and Country, ami at all llailicay lioakstalU. 

MY SISTER THE ACTKESS. By Fi.oukxck 
Marryat, Author of " The Root of ah Evil," 
&c., &c. 

THE DEAN'S WIFK. Bv Mils. RiLOART, Author 
of " The Love ihat Lived," &c., &c. 

TWO MEN AND A MAID. By Harriett Jay, 
Author of •' The Queen of Conuaught," &c.. &c. 

A BROKEN BLOSSOM. By Floukncb 
Marryat, Author of '• Phillida," &c., ^c. 

SWEETHEART AND WIFE. By Lady C<>n- 
STAXCic Howard, Author of "Mollie 
Darling," &c., &c. 

BARBARA'S WARNING. By MRS. HOUSTOUX, 
Author of *' Recomiiiended to Mercy," &c., &c. 

PHYLLIDA. By Fi.ohesck Markyat, Author 
of '* My Sist*r the Actress," &c., &c. 

SOME OF OUR GIRLS. By Mrs. Eiloart, 
Author of " The Dean's Wife," &c., &c. 

ALLERTON TOWERS. By Akxie Thomas 
(Mrs. Pender Cudlip), Author ot ''Leuis 
Donne," &c., &c. 

THE HOOT OF ALL EVIL. By Florence 
Marryat, Author of *• Phyllida," &c., &c. 

A PROFESSIONAL BEAUTY. By Mr^. ALEX- 
ANDER KRASER, Author of ** Guardian and 
Lover," «S:c., &c. 

MOLLIE D AH LING. By LADY CONSTANCE 
Howard. Aut hor of " bweetheart find Wi/e ' 

fTvTw h JT E~&~co!i 

31, Southampton Street, Strand. 




FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. 



BY 

MES. G. LINN^US BANKS, 

AUTHORESS OP " GOD'S PROVIDENCE HOUSE,** "THE MANCHESTER 

MAN , " " GLORY," &C., &C. 



Jl ^Ot)Cl. 



IN THREE VOLUMES. 



VOL. II. 



LONDON : 
F. V. WHITE & CO., 31, SOUTHAMPTON ST., STRAND. 

1883. 

151, -^ . -]~\l» 



^^^-^. 



V 



.^V, ^^ 



VBINTED BY 
KBIXY AND CO.. OATS STREET, LINCOLK'S IKN FIELDS *, 
AND KINOSTON-OK-THAMES. 



CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER PA6B 

I.^In thb Housb op Bondage .... 1 

II. — A Day of Subpbisbs 29 

III. — A ScENB IN A Theatre 49 

IV. — Mb8. Wynne's Mistake .... 67 

V. — On the Way to the Post .... 88 

VI. — In Contrast 114 

VII. — Muriel's Visitors 146 

VIII. — Mrs. Bancroft's Business . . . . 170 

IX. — Seen and Heard 197 

X. — Unknown Attractions .... 225 

XI. — For the Benefit of Her Health . . 247 



FORBIDDEN TO MARRY, 




CHAPTER I. 

IN THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE. 

T has been intimated that Muriel's home- 
coming had not been the unmixed joy 
she had anticipated. The severe discipline 
and hardships of her school-life had been 
shared with others. In the school there was 
no favouritism, and if she suffered more it was 
from her greater sensibility and long isolation 
from her kith and kin. Eeturning, she had 
found that long absence had apparently 
weakened the bonds of sisterhood, that the 
accomplishments she had acquired so pain- 
fully served only to mark her out for envy, 
and that she was no nearer to the heart of 
her father. Well was it that hers was not a 

VOL. IT. B 



2 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. 

rebellious disposition. She had learned self- 
repression almost from her cradle, so early 
was the ban of ugliness set upon her, and the 
doctrine, that " only goodness could atone for 
her want of good looks," inculcated. Father, 
aunts, uncles, all harped on the same string, 
the latter adding jests and banter to their 
admonitions. Only her mother refrained, 
and to that mother she clung as to a superior 
being, whose amiability she could never hope 
to equal. 

And there she might be right, for Mrs. 
D'Anycr's amiability was not that of inane 
weakness, but of a self-subdued will, and 
hourly self-sacrifice for the preservation of 

« 

domestic peace. There was some com- 
pensation for Muriel in the regard of her 
aged grandparents, the D'Anyers, and in the 
clinging affection of little Sara, and even in 
the satisfaction with which Lydia hailed her 
coming whenever baby Lyd was tedious, 
because she " had such a winning way with 
the child," or in Milly Hargreaves' many 
sentimental confidences. And it so happened 



IN THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE. 3 

that handsome, spoiled, wayward Milly, having 
no sisters of her own, had singled out Muriel 
in their earliest childhood as the one cousin 
to supply the want, and to be loved and 
trusted above the rest. Certainly, whenever 
Muriel stayed with her Grandmother Bancroft 
there was Millicent to be found also ; — play- 
mates in infancy, companions as girlhood grew 
and ripened. 

Muriel was often at her Uncle Sam's, ^ot 
that Lydia was particularly sociable, but she 
fancied her aunt was isolated and desponding, 
and that the baby wanted better nursing and 
more fresh air. So with Sara by her side, 
she would take the long-robed infant in her 
arms and stroll up Eed Bank, or to the 
Horrocks in quest of Milly, bringing Sara 
back with a store of summer posies gathered 
by the way. 

Of course, this soon came to John D'Anyer's 
ears. His pride took fire. He was " indignant 
that his daughter, who had not been sufiered 
to nurse her own brother, should have no 
more pride or self respect than to turn 

B 2 



4 FOBBIDDEN TO MABBY, 

amateur nursemaid to anybody's child, least 
of all that of his brother-in-law's countrified 
wife ! " And in his indignation, he stigmatised 
his wife and daughter, both to his informant 
and to their faces, as " spiritless lackeys," a 
term of opprobrium by no means new, but 
this time it travelled farther than he in- 
tended. 

Mrs. Bancroft came in one afternoon with 
her tucked-up gown and black mode scarf, 
and a set purpose in every line of her face. 

She met Muriel in the passage. 

" Well, child, I hear that roses don't grow 
without thorns in these parts," she said 
meaningly. 

" Nor in any parts, grandmother ; but Miss 
Williams taught me how to blunt their 
points." 

Into the sitting-room she marched. 

" So, Ellen, I hear that you and Muriel are 
a pair of 'spiritless lackeys.' But I'll see 
that Muriel plays lackey no more, either for 
him or Lydia, or those lazy bone sisters of 
hers. She goes back to Chester at the fair." 



IN THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE. 5 

" Goes back there ! " and timid Mrs. 
D'Anyer looked appalled. 

" Yes, Mrs. Hopley offered to. take her as 
an apprentice. I didn't see it then, but I do 
now. Trade's bad, very bad, likely to be 
worse ; food's rising in price. Ah, you may 
well sigh, with so many mouths to feed, and 
John making bad debts. It may be a good 
thing if one of the girls gets a trade in her 
fingers. Not that Muriel will ever need it. 
I'll see to that; but. it may be. useful and 
saving amongst a family of girls." 

"And what shall / do?" asked Ellen 
ruefully, she had found in Muriel a companion 
as well as a helper, such as the younger ones 
could never be. 

" Do ! Why, set that lazy Marion and Anna 
to work. They'll shed no tears for their 
sister if they do for their * lackey. ' " The 
word must have galled Sarah Bancroft, 
she made so much of it. 

"But, mother, Anna and Marion still go 
to school, they have their lessons to learn 
at home, they cannot help me ; besides, 



6 FOsilDDEy TO MABBY. 

Muriel is older — and — and — more thought- 
ful." 

" Aye, much too thoughtful to my mind, 
it seems as if she had the cares of the whole 
family on her young shoulders. And she's 
for helping Lydia with her's into the bargain ; 
and small thanks she gets. But 111 put a 
stop to it." 

'' And what about Sara ? Muriel is teaching 
her. The child would miss her dreadfully." 

" Teaching is she, and washing, and dress- 
ing, and amusing, I suppose. Well, she shall 
go where she will be learning instead of 
teaching. Send Sara to school and keep 
Anna at home if you want a helper beside 
the maids. Muriel plays general ' lackey ' no 
longer here I " 

And though Ellen D'Anyer sighed, and 
John D'Anyer's pride rebelled, Mrs. Ban- 
croft's strong will and plain speaking carried 
the day. Muriel was but a leaf on the stream. 
Her opinion was not asked, her wishes were 
not consulted, her objections were over-ruled. 
Indeed she ceased to object when her mother 



IN THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE. 7 

said, "Don't thwart your grandmother, she 
sees farther than we do, and it won't do to 
offend her. Your father looks to her for 
means to help him over the present crisis ; 
for between your uncles and aunts there is 
nothing to be got out of the D'Anyers. 
There are too many schemers around the 
old folk. So be a good lass and go quietly." 

" Ah I mother dear, that is always your 
maxim — ' quietly.' It is not always easy to 
be quiet. But kiss me, mother, and I'll do 
my best to be quiet too." 

And she kept her word, not for a day, but 
for a life. . 

When Sarah Bancroft, and John D'Anyer 
and Sam rode back from Chester Autumn 
Fair, Muriel was left behind, bound hard and 
fast by her indentures to Mrs. Hopley for the 
term of five years ; the remission of two years 
Irom the customary seven having been made 
a matter of extra premium. Mrs. Bancroft 
had gone in search of the Eev. Thomas 
Bancroft . once more, hoping this time to 
induce a little better supervision of the girl ; 



S FOBBIDDEN TO MABRY, 

and was disappointed to find that he had 
quitted Chester for a better living in Bolton, 
nevertheless, she left her in her old friend's 
charge with not a doubt of Mrs. Hopley's 
motherly care, and kissed the girl on leaving 
with the fullest sense of having done her duty, 
and her best for Muriel. How far her judg- 
ment was right remains to be seen. 

And let no one in these times be surprised 
that the child and grandchild of well-to-do 
manufacturers should be so apprenticed. 
There was no such gulf between the retail 
and the wholesale trader as society now sets 
up. Men (and women) of wealth, worked with 
their own hands amongst their own work- 
people and thought it only right to do so. 
There was no chance, no excuse for the men 
idling when the master was at work too ; and 
when hands, and eyes, and brains, and capital 
worked together, fortunes were made. 

John D'Anyer was wont to boast that he 
had patrician blood in his veins, and it was 
tlie pride of ancestry, not of the manufacturer, 
which rebelled against his mother-in-law's 



IN THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE. 9 

proposition. But Chester was far away, 
Muriel might come back improved in appear- 
ance, or at all events more useful to those at 
home ; he had his own reasons for keeping 
terms with his decisive mother-in-law^ and 
after some demur he assented. 

It was customary at that time to keep the 
raw apprentice for a whole year running up 
the seams of gown-skirts, and running errands. 
It was not until the last year of her probation 
that she was allowed to cut out and trim. 

But Mrs. Hopley had other views with 
respect to Miss D'Anyer ; views she had not 
thought necessary to set before Mrs. Bancroft. 

When she was gone and all settled, Muriel 
was shown into an upstairs room, or rather 
garret, with whitewashed walls, where she 
and three other apprentices had to sleep. 
It contained two truckle beds, a small trian- 
gular washstand, and a tiny looking-glass 
suspended from a nail in the window frame. 
There was no dressing table but the window 
ledge, no chairs, — the girls' boxes might do 
duty for seats. 



«^ A 



lo FORBIDDEN TO MABRY. 

"What a wretched place?" was Muriel's 
involuntary ejaculation to her conductress, a 
Miss Holmes, the daughter of the Northwich 
doctor, as Muriel afterwards discovert. 

'' Half of Mrs. Hopley's tribe of children are 
similarly accommodated across the landing, 
so we apprentices can have no grounds to 
complain," and a shrug of the shoulder gave 
significance to Miss Holmes' reply: 

There was no wardrobe, no chest of drawers. 
Muriel's trunk was tightly packed. " Where 
can I put my clothes ? " she asked. 

Miss Holmes pointed to a row of pegs in 
use. " You can have a couple of those, there 
is your, trunk for the rest; and I would advise 
you to lock it." 

Muriel looked dismayed. "Why, this is 
worse than Miss Briscoe's." 

Miss Holmes smiled. "Children are apt 
to be inquisitive, and to leave dirty finger- 
marks, that is all I meant. Are you 
ready ? " 

They went down to the work-room on the 
floor below. It had three windows and over- 



IN THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE. il 

looked the street. There was a large deal 
table in the middle on which lay odds and 
ends of tabinet, taffeta, mode, damask, velvet 
and various other materials, paper patterns, 
pincushions, piercers, pins, scissors, wax, 
thread-papers and cotton-balls, in what 
seemed to Muriers unaccustomed eyes, dire 
confusion. Six or seven young persons were 
seated round it at work, and without looking 
up or pausing for an instant, eyed her askance 
as she entered. 

" Miss D'Anyer, you can take that seat," 
said Mrs. Hopley, a plain little woman, in as 
plain a black gown, at the top of the table, 
pointing to an unoccupied rush-bottomed 
chair with a straight high back. 

"There is a green camlet petticoat on 
which you can begin, for practice. Miss 
Holmes, I will thank you to show Miss 
D'Anyer how I require the straight seams 
to be run together. She must not attempt 
the gores." 

The camlet was hard and stiff, the needle 
long, the work new ; she pricked her fingers, 



12 FORBIDDEy TO MARRY. 

knotted her. thread ; at the end of the seam 
found the upper breadth two inches short. 
It was evidently puckered. She had to draw 
out the thread, and commence afresh. She 
managed better the next time. But she had 
fastened . off her threads, had swerved from 
the straight line. Again the thread had to 
be withdrawn. The task she had thought so 
simple did require practice. The third time 
she was more successful. 

So began MurieFs initiation into the art 
of mantua-making. So began her five years 
bond-service. 

Is there nothing to be learned in those 
five years of maidenhood but the mysteries 
of thread and needle, silk and scissors? 
Will no romance break in on the dull 
monotony of five years' stitchery? 

Wait. Time does not open his budget 
beforehand. 

For some time after this Muriel might 
have been seen installed at the great deal 
table in the long, low-ceiled room, with the 
seam of a skirt pinned to a large, heavy lead 



/y THE HOUSE OF BOSDAGK 13 

pincushion before her ; whilst Mrs. Hopley 
or her forewoman, sitting on raised seats at 
either end, adjusted paper patterns on linen 
linings, folded or pierced boundary lines in 
the latter with a huge steel stiletto before 
cutting into shape, composedly measured off 
breadths of costly brocades, or taffetas, or 
levantines, as of small account, or gave 
materials and directions right and left to 
apprentices and workwomen for this sleeve or 
that bodice, this piping, that ruffle. And we, 
looking back, might have watched her, as the 
youngest apprentice running errands indoors 
and out, cutting hanks of thread and skeins 
of silk into lengths, and plaiting up or 
folding them in papers lengthwise for use, or 
going to and from the long bags suspended 
from nails in the walls to remove rags or paper- 
patterns, or other odds and ends, or we might 
have heard the call from either end of the 
table, "Pins wanted! Miss D'Anyer, please 
to pick up the pins ; " and have seen Muriel 
go on her knees beneath the table, with the 
pin-tray in her hand, to pick up the multitu- 



14 FORBIDDEN TO MARBY. 

dinous needles and pins with which the floor 
was strewn, rejecting such as were headless 
and useless, for pins at that period were apt 
to lose their loose round knobby heads, made 
of fine wire separately twisted round the pin 
like a Turkish turban. 

Three months later Mrs. Hoploy found it 
convenient to call in one of her own young- 
sters to pick up the pins, and to send another 
apprentice on the outdoor errands, which had 
previously been so beneficial to Muriel's 
health. It was only on the Sunday that she 
could breathe the fresh air, and then after 
church she would take one or other of the 
little Hopleys by the hand, for a stroll by the 
Dee, or across the river to Handbridge, some- 
times in company with Lucinda Holmes, but 
she "did not care to have the children al- 
ways at her heels; little pitchers had such 
long ears, and such long tongues into the 
bargain." 

"Ah, but they have affectionate little 
hearts," replied Muriel, "and if our own 
tongues do not wag too fast, we need not 



IN THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE, 15 

be afraid of theirs, so mother used to tell 
Betty." 

Nevertheless Miss Holmes preferred to take 
the air without the said "little pitchers." 

Mrs. Hopley had found more profitable 
employment for Muriel — profitable, that is, 
for herself — which began with flowering (as 
it was called) a white satin waistcoat for Lord 
Grosvenor, with coloured silk, in what is now 
designated crewel stitch. 

Shortly before Muriel was placed with the 
Misses Briscoe, British muslin had been first 
manufactured. Previously, India had sup- 
plied us with muslin — soft, and fine, and 
filmy as a cobweb — the tax on which placed 
it quite out of common reach ; but indeed, so 
had Indian calicoes been taxed, and it was 
not more than twenty years earlier that the 
first piece of Enghsh calico had been made. 

She had gone to Mrs. Hopley when the 
new production was in the early flush of 
fashion ; and when Paisley was sending forth 
muslins sprigged ^nd spotted with cotton in 
the tambour frame. 



i6 FORBIDDEN TO MABRY. 

Mrs. Hopley improved upon this for her 
exclusive patronesses of Chester and North 
Wales ; and if we had looked into her show- 
room even some three years later we might 
have seen where she had placed the Misses 
Briscoe's pupil at one of the windows with 
a tambour-frame between herself and the 
light, on which was stretched a breadth of 
transparent white muslin. Through this the 
skilful worker sent her rapid little tambour- 
needle (or hook) darting with the celerity of 
light, caught up the fine crewel worsted, and 
so conjured a wreath of glowing roses into 
being under her deft hand. 

It was not a healthy occupation for a 
growing girl; there was no mention of it in 
her indentures — it formed no legitimate part 
of the business she was there to learn ; yet 
there she was seated from six in the morning 
until dusk, with her back to her companions, 
and the breadth of the frame interposed 
between her and a glimpse of the traffic in 
the street far below. Nothing to see but 
the muslin and the tightly-twisted crewels— 



IN THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE, 17 

unless perchance a gabled roof or two, and 
the sky — little or no conversation, no relaxa- 
tion except when the bell called all down- 
stairs into the kitchen- for meals. 

Even these were hurried, for May was 
coming, and many were the robes, besides 
the one in Muriel's tambour-frame, which 
must be finished and ready for the wearers 
before the race-week. 

And do not suppose that dusk put a stop to 
Muriel's work, though daylight lingers long 
to welcome the steps of May. 

" I should think you would be too weary 
to begin to sew after all the hours you have 
been stuck at that frame," whispered her 
friend. Miss Holmes, to her, as she stretched 
herself upwards with the prolonged sigh of 
exhaustion, before taking her seat at the 
table to join together strips of satin on the 
bias into lengths for rouleaus or soft piping. 

" Yes, I am tired ; but the work has to be 
done, and, after the tambour-frame, sewing is 
rather a relief," she answered pleasantly, in 
the same low tone. 

VOL. II. c 



i8 FORBIDDEN TO MABEY. 

"Belief, do you call it? Well, you are a 
droll mortal. But, certainly, any change 
must be a relief after stooping so long. 
I wonder how you stand it day after 
day ! " 

"Why, Lucinda, I am rather glad to 
be free to stoop. At Miss Briscoe's we wore 
a stiff collar with a sharp point under our 
chins when we sat at our embroidery, lest we 
should stoop and spoil our figures. It is 
quite satisfactory not to have a smart prick 
every now and then ; " and Muriel put down 
her sewing to thread her needle and snuff 
the candles. 

"Well," answered the other, pausing for 
an instant in her amazement, " I never saw 
your equal for making the best of things! 
I wish / could. I get as savage at times as 
a \sild Indian." 

" And so should I, if it would do any good. 
I get weary enough. But whenever I feel 
inclined to rebel, I think of the poor little 
factory children, going barefooted to their 
work, through the frost, and the snow, and the 



IN THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE. 19 

rain at four o'clock in the morning, and that 
stops my grumbling." 

" Less chattering at that end of the table ! 
It interrupts work ; " and after the sound of 
Mrs. Hopley's business-like voice there was 
silence, unbroken save for the busy click of 
needles, the rustle of silk, the dropping of 
pins or scissors, or of snuffers into a snuffer- 
trav. 

The first break was at eight o'clock, when 
the forewoman rose, laid« her work in order 
for the morning, and with a simple '* Good- 
night" to Mrs. Hopley, departed to her own 
home, to be followed or preceded by the 
rest of the outdoor workers. 

There was ^ another break at nine, when 

Mrs. Hopley herself stepped downstairs to 

her hot supper, and sent upstairs a cup of 

milk and a piece of bread to refresh each 

weary worker before the servants went to 

their press-bed in the kitchen. It was sent 

to them, not to save weary limbs the stretch 

up and down the stairs, but to save the 

interruption of the journey to and fro ; for 

c 2 



20 . FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. 

in and out of seam or fold, rich brocade 
or filmy muslin, must go the pitiless needles 
until the stroke of midnight, in spite of ach- 
ing heads or eyes, or sleepy yawning, when 
even the snuffing of the candles became a 
change from the monotony of stitchery. 

" Oh dear ! how glad I am to get to 
bed," said one of the girls en reaching their 
long attic. " I am almost too tired to 
undress ; " and she threw herself across the 
bed as she was, and had to be roused from 
sleep when her bed-fellow was undressed. 

" I was afraid she was going to keep us at 
it all night again, the old screw!" observed 
Miss Holmes, with a yawn, as she hastily 
doffed her clothes, leaving them in a ring 
on the floor, and slipped into bed, crying, 
" Gracious ! if that girl isn't down on her 
knees as usual ! " 

"Well!" she began again, when Muriel 
rose to her feet, " I wonder you are not too 
jaded to say your prayers. I forget mine 
when I'm sleepy." 

" Ah ! " said Muriel, soberly, " I dare not 



IN THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE. 21 

do that. I should be afraid, if I forgot 
my prayers, God might forget me. And 
where should I find strength for my work 
then? I never felt more need for prayer. 
Good-night." 

The good-night was spoken to closed 
ears, and very shortly Muriel w^as asleep 
also. 

All tlie girls were looking forward with 
anticipation to the race-week for rest and 
relaxation, but before that came a week when 
even the forewoman and outdoor hands 
were constrained to work an hour later in 
the evenings — a week prefaced and ended 
with a Sunday which was 7iot sl Sabbath 
for the apprentices who had the misfortune 
to be of Mrs. Hopley's own household. 

Did Mrs. Hopley remain in the work-room 
to sustain the weary girls by her presence 
as a fellow-worker? Did she excuse by 
any sophistry this compulsory breach of the 
fourth commandment? 

She just came into the work-room, appointed 
each her special task, to be completed on her 



28; . FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. 

return ; and whilst the bells were ringing 
solemnly out, went calmly forth in a dress qf 
black lutestring, in the rear of her troop of 
children, to Trinity Ghurch, with Mr. Hopley 
in a sober suit of brown by her side. 

Down went work as the street door was 
heard to close. There was a general rush to 
the windows. 

, " There she goes in her silk gown," cried 
one, named Matilda Parkes, " with a face as 
serene as if she hadn't the weight of so much 
as a hank of thread on her conscience." 

" I don't think she has any conscience ! " 
was the commentary of another, " or she 
couldn't for shame go to church and leave us 
slaving here, for her profit." 

"I wonder how the old hypocrite would 
feel if I were to march up the aisle in the 
middle of the sermon, and say, ' K you please, 
Mrs. Hopley, -how am I to trim Lady Grosve- 
nor's sleeve ? ' " said Miss Holmes in a tone of 
sarcastic mimicry, winding up with the quick 
outburst, " I hate hypocrisy ! " 

'> Hush 1 " interposed Murielj who had not 



m THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE, 23 

before spoken. " We are none of us justified 
in judging another. To her own Master she 
standeth or falleth. We have simply to do 
our own duty here. My old teacher, Miss 
Williams, impressed that very strongly on me 
one day when I was judging Miss Briscoe 
very harshly, in a spirit of rebeUion against 
discipline." 

" Ah ! there's another of your pious folk I 
It's enough to make one sick of religion to 
see what a cloak is made of it ! " jerked out. 
Matilda Parkes, with her elbows out on the 
window-sill. 

" Nay," said Muriel, smiling, " we must 
not find fault with the cloak because of the 
rags it may chance to cover." 

" Then, I suppose, you would have us think 
old hypocrites like Mrs. Hopley and the two 
Miss Briscoes pay religion a compHment by 
wearing it as a mantle ? " put in Miss Holmes, 
with a shrug of the shoulders. 

Muriel hesitated, and flushed. She had not 
altogether forgotten her painful experience 
at school, and every day made her more 



24 FOBBIDDEN TO MARRY, 

sick and weary of her trammels in Water- 
gate Street, and led her to question "her 
grandmother's discernment, even if she 
made no open complaint. But young 
as she was, she had learned somehow, 
not to confound systems with individuals ; 
and her charity was large. She answered 
slowly : — 

" I fear that hypocrites do bring religion 
into discredit ; but we have no right to say 
that either Miss Briscoe, or Miss Betty, or 
Mrs. Hopley are intentionally hypocrites. 
Miss Williams said " 

" Oh, there now," interrupted Miss Parkes, 
"we've had quite enough of Miss Williams 
and her preaching, and yours too ! You'll 
want to make out that the Briscoes and 
Hopleys are angels next ! " 

'* I do think that Mrs. Hopley's customers 
are almost as much to blame as she is ! " 
And Muriel's needle flew swiftly through the 
stitchery she had resumed. 

" Of course she could neither decline the 
work, nor get more helpers? And the 



IN THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE. 25 

excellent motlier must set an example to her 
chicks ! '' 

A burst of approving laughter, very un- 
common in that room, greeted Miss Holmes's 
ironical speech, of which Muriel took no 
open notice. But when Miss Holmes came 
back to her seat, and to the Grecian robe she 
was trimming, she leaned towards her and 
whispered : — 

"Don't be too hard on Mrs. Hopley. 
Think what her cares must be with all that 
family to rear, and so little help from her 
husband. She would offend her best cus- 
tomers if she refused work at the busy 
seasons. I dare say we are no worse off than 
other apprentices. Eemember that Mary 
Clifford was beaten to death by her 
mistress. And if she did leave us at work 
whilst she took her children to church, it 
was better than keeping them all at home, 
or letting them go alone. Mind you, I don't 
approve of sewing on a Sunday any more 
than you do. I feel that I want rest, and 
should work all the better in the week if 



26 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. 

I had it ; and IVe an impression that 
what Mrs. Hopley gains by our work on 
the Sunday, she loses on the Monday, and 
is no richer for it at the year's end." 

" That's very likely ! " was all the reply 
from Miss Holmes this time. Muriel had sent 
her thoughts into a new channel ; and when 
Mrs. Hopley came back, needles, not tongues, 
were at work. 

Not until the Monday night was the last 
garment completed and sent home. On 
Tuesday there was a thorough clearing and 
turn-out of the work-room and dormitories 
for whitewashing and scrubbing. And then, 
when the girls were completely worn out 
with night and day work, there were four 
days for themselves. 

Four days when they were allowed to go 
where they pleased, see whom they pleased, 
do what they pleased, without let or hind- 
rance. The exemplary matron, the vigilant 
taskmistress, who indoors laid an embargo on 
free speech and locomotion, suffering the 
maidens in her charge to go forth witliout 



IN THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE 27 

guardian or supervision amongst the indis- 
criminate throng drawn together by a great 
horse-race. What would Mrs. Bancroft or the 
D'Anyers have thought had they known it. 

Legislation has stepped in to protect the 
factory child and the milliner's assistant ; but 
far into the present century girls were 
worked to death before their apprenticeships 
ran out. That is, when there was a fashionable 
demand upon the establishment, and the head 
of it had no scruples. In the last century 
apprentice-law was excessively stringent, and 
at all times there are those who will take 
advantage of all the law allows and feel 
themselves justified. As I have elsewhere 
intimated, in our army, our navy, our public 
schools, our private households. Discipline 
was the dominant power, and people had a 
notion that the world would not get on if 
the despot DiscipUne was deposed. Feeling 
was blunted by common consent. 

We, in this our day, looking back ask, 
could such things be ? But then they were^ 
and were too general to create surprise. But 



28 • FOBBIDDEN TO MARRY, 

even then there were masters and masters, 
mistresses and mistresses, and Mrs. Bancroft 
had made a mistake, not in the system, but 
in regarding Mrs. Hopley as one of its 
mildest exponents. 

Not the only mistake she had made. 




CHAPTER II. 



A DAY OF SURPRISES. 




I 

iOETUNATELY for girls so left to them- 
selves, at Chester the Eoodee, or race- 
course, lies in a bend of the river immediatelv 
beneath its broad Walls on the south-west, 
overlooked by the Castle, and had anyone 
impeached Mrs. Hopley's care for the young 
women committed to her charge, she would 
most likely have pointed to the fashion and 
respectability of Chester congregated on those 
Walls to witness the race, and have asked, 
" Where could they be more secure ? " 

And indeed there the best families of 
Chester might be found, for there they could 
see the show yet not be of it. 

But what guarantee had Mrs. Hopley that 
they, cooped up week after week in a close 
work-room, would keep to the comparatively 



30 FOBBIDDEN TO MARRY. 

safe Walls, and not rush like unbroken colts 
under the Watergate to the Eoodee itself, 
with all its excitement and gaiety and — 
danger ? 

Such might have been the case year by 
year had not Muriel shrank from mingling 
with a promiscuous crowd, and refused to ac- 
company Matilda Parkes and her set on- the 
first occasion ! They had urged that her 
"mother would not know," and she had 
answered " God and my own conscience 
would " ; and after some banter and ridicule 
as a " methodistical baby," and " a stuck-up 
miss," she was left to pursue her own 
path. 

But she was not left alone. Miss Holmes, 
the Northwich surgeon's daughter, h6r elder 
by a couple of years, struck by the arguments 
of a mere girl on the side of propriety, had 
left the others to their own devices and borne 
Muriel company. 

They were of different temperaments and 
training, but they were friends from that day 
forth, to which friendship an unexpected 



A DAY OF SURPRISES. 31 

meeting with Dr. Holmes and a party of 
Northwich friends no little contributed. 

Three years had done their work and 
Muriel was now eighteen, tall and slender, 
too slender in fact, for her slight though 
symmetrical figure suggested overgrowth and 
overwork, too much sitting up, and too little 
nourishment, as did the flitting colour on 
her cheeks from which the disfiguring red 
marks of disease had disappeared, leaving 
little besides a seam between the lower lip and 
chin to tell what its ravages must have been 
when her father could say her " beauty was 
spoiled for ever." 

Beautiful she was not; but there was a 
something in her face better than beauty. 
She had a long, straight nose, good teeth, an 
open forehead, a pleasant smile, a pair of 
large brown eyes, clear and transparent as 
the well of truth, and her nut-brown hair 
had grown afresh sufficiently to curl all over 
her head, and be the very height of Parisian 
fashion, if it could no longer stray below her 
waist. What the style is called in these days 



32 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. 

of modern reproduction I know not. In 
those terrible days of French Eevolution it 
was called a "Brutus." Any way it suited 
Muriel, and so did the low-crowned straw hat 
she wore tied over her ears with a sky-blue 
ribbon in a bow beneath her chin. She 

cemed to have a liking for the colour which 
harmonized so well with her complexion ; for 

iie small ruflBes at the wrists of her tiofht 
sleeves were confined by narrow straps of the 
same hue, whilst an azure waistband also 

irdled her plain white muslin dress, as might 
be seen when her scarf-tippet, also of muslin, 
and crossed modestly over the bodice, wafted 
aside. 

The dress was plain and simple, without 
frill or furbelow, was not so tight as to 
impede locomotion, not so long as to sweep 
up the dust, nor so short as to exhibit more 
than the neat foot. But simple as it was, 
both that and the corresponding dress of 
Miss Holmes had been weeks in preparation, 
an occasional quarter of an hour stolen from 
sleep having been given to them, and so 



A DAY OF surprises: 33 

much of the first day of their holiday as 
exhausted nature had not compelled them 
to spend on their pillows. 

On the Thursday they were all up betimes. 
There was quite a scramble which should 
have prior use of the mean looking-glass ; 
but even the dressing of damsels for an 
unwonted holiday must come to an end, 
and then they stole one by one into the 
show-room to take a general survey in the 
large mirror before they sallied forth, their 
hearts in a flutter with the excitement of the 
actual, the probable, and the possible. 

"You look a credit to the house," Mrs. 
Hopley condescended to say as they passed 
her on the stairs. " I hope your demeanour 
will be equally creditable," at which Miss 
Parkes gave her head a toss. Most likely 
she felt the reminder as a home-thrust ; but 
our story does not concern Matilda Parkes; 
it follows those who, as usual, separated 
from her and her companions at the Water- 
gate. 

" I'm glad to be well rid of them," said 

VOL. ir. D 



34 FORBIDDEN TO MARBY. 

Miss Holmes, as she turned to the long 
flight of steps which led up to the Walls, 
whilst the others, less scrupulous, passed 
under the shadow of the wide arch on to the 
open Eoodee, where the velvet turf bore 
traces of three days' trampling under foot. 
"Their manners are anything but decorous. 
I should be ashamed if anyone I knew saw 
me with them. They have never been the 
same girls since they first went on that 



course." 



"I'm sure I don't care to associate with 
them, either in the house or out, though 
there is little fear of meeting anyone I 
know," said Muriel. "Still I am very 
sorry they would not be advised. They 
are sure to regret their giddiness in the 
long run." 

" Not meet anyone in all this crowd ! 
Well, we shall see ! " 

They were by this time on the Walls above 
the Watergate. Looking back up the street, 
they watched a well-known chariot with six 
horses coming down at a rattle, closely 



• A DAY OF SURPRISES, 35 

followed by a light curricle. By some 
unknown impulse, Muriel hurried her com- 
panion across to the opposite side, and, 
standing with her hand to her chest, — for a 
small matter took her breath, — looked over 
the parapet, and saw — not only Lady 
Grosvenor's chariot bowling through the 
broad arch on to the Eoodee, with a troop 
of gentlemen on horseback in attendance on 
the beauty of the day — but the curricle, and 
in it — she could not be mistaken — sat Mrs. 
Wjmne, elegantly and youthfully attired in 
gauze and lace and feathers, and, yes ! it was 
Mr. Arthur Wynne there by his mother's 
side. She might have doubted, for six years 
had wrought a change in him as in herself; 
but the clustering curls had all been drawn 
back, pomatumed and powdered in regulation 
military style, so that the red scar on his 
temple was visible. 

Her heart gave a great bound. Yet where- 
fore ? Had not the Wynnes passed out of her 
life and her memory? Her hand went up 

instinctively to her neck, and closed upon the 

D 2 



36 FOHBIDDEX TO MARRY. 

lady's locket. How should she forget with 
that memorial in wear? There was no 
doubt an eager smile upon her face. 

He looked up ; his glance took in the out- 
lines of two nice girls in straw hats and 
muslin tippets. There was a temporary 
stoppage. He had an impression he had seen 
those large brown eyes somewhere before. 
The carriages rolled on again, the lady 
oblivious, her son perplexed by a glimpse of 
brown eyes, and Muriel feeling only — they 
were gone ! 

" Why, Miss D'Anyer, I declare if that 
piece of affectation is not the captain's wife 
who was so rude to Mrs. Hopley ! " 

" Eh ! " said Muriel, only half roused from 
her reverie. 

" Don't you know ? — the lady who was so 
anxious to have a dress made by Lady 
Grosvenor's own milliner, and who, when her 
ladyship sent Mrs. Hopley to her, at the 
Blossoms, was so uncivil. I fancy I see her 
now ! You know I went with Mrs. Hopley 
that day to carry the measures and patterns, 



A DAY OF SUBPJRISKS, 37 

and bring the stuff back. Up went her 
ladj^ship's, or captainship's eyebrows with a 
well-bred stare. She eyed little Mrs. Hopley 
from the point of her toe to the tip of her 
black bonnet, and superciliously lisped out, 
* You cannot be Mrs. Hopley ; there must be 
some mistake.' *Yes, madam, I am Mrs. 
Hopley. There is no mistake. I understood 
from Lady Grosvenor that you desired me to 
make a dress.' ' You ! ' drawled out the lady, 
' you ! an antiquated frump like you could 
never make a dress for me T ' Very well, 
madam. Good-day ! ' and the Hopley walked 
out with as much dignity under her plain 
black bombazine as if she had been a duchess 
and not a dressmaker. I had much ado to 
keep my countenance. But wasn't Mrs. Hopley 
in a rage, — you surely remember ? And see, 
Muriel, the two carriages are drawing along- 
side one another, and I could fancy the 
captain's wife was telling Lady Grosvenor 
that Mrs. Hopley had declined to accept her 
humble apology when she found out her 
mistake. I wonder if she will tell her how 



38 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. 

Mrs. Hopley curtsied and said, ' Oh, no, 
madam, an antiquated frump like me could 
not make a dress for you I ' " 

" Who are you mimicking all this while ? " 
asked Muriel, recalled to herself. "Not, 
surely, Mrs. Wynne?" 

" Yes, that's the name — Mrs. Wynne ! " 

" Then perhaps you do not know she was 
the lady your father attended at Eddisbury, 
when her chaise upset ! " 

" You don't mean it ! That wax doll ! 
Why, if, as the song says of her ladyship, — 

*She dyes her lips with the rose's hue, 
And paints her veins with azure blue/ 

I am sure it might be said of Mrs. Wynne. 
I never saw such a piece of " 

"Stop, Lucinda ! You must not say that 
of Mrs. Wynne. / never saw her paint, and 
she was very polite to me." 

"And if that's the lady, she had reason to 
be polite to you, I've heard father say. But 
come along, and let's see who are on the 
Walls before the races begin." 

Muriel was not voluble ; Miss Holmes was. 



A DA^ Of SUBPBISE8, 39 

Scarcely an individual passed in that saunter 
amidst the gay and fashionable throng whom 
she did not check off with some droll com^ 
ment on costume or characteristics. 

Muriel was silent, glad all at once that Mr. 
Arthur Wynne had escaped her companion's 
observation, and to be spared the effort of 
conversation. Why, she could scarcely have 
told ; but the sight of that curricle and its 
occupants had thrown her back into the 
past, — to associations at once pleasant and 
painful. She was never one to overrate her 
own services. Now, she felt that no chance 
service of her grandmother or herself could 
bridge the gulf between the Manchester 
traders and the associates of Lady Grosvenor. 
Yet common sense would be heard, and it 
said that if those people owed their lives to 
her grandmother, they w^ould be ungrate- 
ful to forget it, whatsoever their rank. And 
she could not think Mr. Arthur ungrateful. 
Oh, how she wished Miss Briscoe had allowed 
her to see the captain when he called ! 

As if conjured up by the thought, they 



40 FORBIDDEN TO MABBY, 

came abruptly upon the two prim sisters, 
as stately as of old, although the elder now 
rested for support on a crutched stick, and 
there was an air of slightly faded gentility 
about their well-worn brocades. 

Muriel would fain have questioned them 
respecting Captain Wynne, but her awe of 
the grand preceptresses had not died out; she 
answered their formal salutation with a pro- 
found obeisance, as of old, and the oppor- 
tunity was lost, as they passed on. 

A race was being won or lost; horses 
flashed past with the rapidity of lightning, 
urged on by whip and spur, and the cries of an 
excited throng ; but Muriel's eyes seemed 
drawn by some strange fascination to a group 
ot carriages, as if to single out one figure of 
the many standing up and cheering the winner. 

There was something in Muriel's breast that 
was neither hope nor expectation, and yet 
was vaguely akin to both, w4th a dash of 
doubt thrown in. Should she ever meet the 
young officer face to face again ? His rank 
was to her unknown. 



A LAY OF 8URPBISES. 41 

They had turned again to promenade, and 
not more brightly did the sun flash in the 
winding river, than the light which shone in 
Muriel's countenance as , she encountered — 
not a gay young officer — but Mrs. Parry, from 
the Wrexham farm. 

By this time, Muriel had picked up sufficient 
Welsh, and Mrs. Parry had so far improved 
her English, as to need no translator ; and 
the former was soon in possession of the 
intelligence that Captain Griffiths and her 
niece were then in Portsmouth, that he was 
about to join his ship, and that when he had 
sailed, Mrs. Griffiths and her two children 
would come to stay with her on the farm 
in his absence. 

" Ant you had pest comes, too, my tear. 
It will do you goot, look you ! You pe too 
like the lily and the willow ; you want the 
fresh air ant the fresh milk, look you, to 
make you pe strong." 

Then the hospitable Welshwoman shook 
hands, and they parted, not, however, before 
she had put Mrs. Parry in possession of the 



42 FORBIDDEN TO MABRY, 

fact of her apprenticeship to Mrs. Hopley, 
and been in turn informed^ — 

"Your fine friends are again with Sir 
Madoc at the Plas, look you ! " information 
which accounted for their presence on the 
racecourse. 

With this meeting, the mercury in Muriel's 
barometer had gone up. 

How she rejoiced in the prospect of seeing 
her gentle friend once again ! — the one who 
had added sympathy to precept, and taught 
her, as her own mother had taught, that 
which the Misses Briscoe did not see was 
needed : forbearance and endurance. 

It was indeed a day of surprises ; that 
day on which Muriel did not expect to meet 
anyone. 

Towards the middle of the afternoon, a 
voice hailed them from the Eoodee. It was 
Dr. Holmes, his suit of professional black 
almost as rusty with wear as with the dust of 
the road. There was a walk back towards the 
Watergate, and then he took possession of them. 

Almost his first salutation was a remark 



A DAY OF SURPJRISES. A3 

that they had " no more colour than their 
dresses," and a demand to know " what have 
you both been doing to look so limp and 
wishy-washy ? " 

"Doing? Working night and day, with 
hardly time to know if the food we ate was 
good or bad, and not too much of it." 

He shook his head. 

" I suppose it would be no use remonstra- 
ting with Mrs. Hopley ? " 

"Kot a bit. She would only tell you as 
she tells us when we grumble, that ' we do 
not know when we are well off, and there 
are other mistresses who beat their appren- 
tices black and blue. She talks of Mrs. 
Brownrigg, of Fetter Lane, London, who 
threw pails of water on her apprentices when 
they swooned after correction, and beat one 
girl to death, but she never adds that Mrs. 
Brownrigg was hanged for it, not she !' She 
* cannot see what we have to complain of,' 
and," added the mimic, " I suppose we must 
grin and abide." 

" Ah, well, Lucinda, your time is nearly up. 



44 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. 

There you have the advantage of your friend 
here." 

" She has one advantage I have not. She 
is patient — I rebel." 

Something in this must have struck Mr. 
Holmes. Turning at a tangent, he said 
abruptly, — 

" I have seen some old acquaintance of 
yours. Miss D'Anyer. Old patients of mine, 
too. But I am sorry to see the lady suffers 
from a more terrible affliction than I have 
power to heal — loss of sight and memory." 

Muriel was puzzled. The surgeon's tone 
was doleful ; the twinkling of his optics un- 
observed. She had noticed nothing wron<T 
with Mrs. Wynne's eyes, still, hers had been 
a distant view. 

'* Blind ? " she exclaimed, incredulously. 

His daughter broke into a merry laugh, 
as he answered with gravity, — 

" Well, not totally blind, my dear, but un- 
able to distinguish any object so small as a 
country doctor." (A look of pain and dis- 
appointment crossed Muriel's face.) " Ah, I 



A DAY OF SURPRISES, 45 

see you know the lady. What a contrast to 
her noble son ! His memory needed no 
jogging. I should not have recognized him, 
he is grown so fine a man. It was he who 
spoke to me — put out his hand and shook 
mine as heartily as if we had been old chums, 
and pointed to the scar above his temple to 
quicken my memory. Then he asked if I had 
ever seen Eed Eiding Hood since she rode 
away on a pillion from the Forest House ; and 
if you had not been a child at that time, I 
should have thought you rode off with a bit 
of his heart, Miss D'Anyer, I should indeed." 

Muriel now laughed merrily, but she 
blushed at the same time. 

" Not much fear of that, doctor." 

" Well, you should know best. But I can 
assure you the message he sent when I said I 
hoped to find you with my daughter looked 
marvellously like it." 

" Messaore ! " echoed Muriel and Miss 
Holmes together. 

"Yes, he begged me to convey to Miss 
D'Anyer his ' regret that his inadvertence had 



46 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY, 

caused unpleasantness between herself and 
the old Griffins who unfortunately had charge 
of her.' He really called them Griffins, my 
young lady, and he also desired me to 
add that he was extremely sorry he should 
have been ordered away, without any 
opportunity being allowed either to the 
captain or himself for apology or explanation. 
And he ' hoped that the little girl would not 
think him ungrateful.'" 

" Little girl, indeed ! " exclaimed Miss 
Holmes. " He should see you now." 

" I was a little girl then, you know." 

"And I suppose he forgets that little girls 
grow," and Lucinda laughed heartily at her 
own supposition. 

What thought the fine young officer who 
came up to them whilst the last race was 
being run, as the red chased the white from 
Muriel's animated face at his hearty recog- 
nition; and the problem of the brown eyes, 
which had haunted him all day, was solved. 

He held Muriel's hand in his clasp as he 
said with honest warmth not unmixed with 



A DAY OF 8UBPBISES. 47 

gratified surprise, " Can you forgive me, Miss 
D'Anyer, for failing to recognize you at a 
glance. A pair of soft eyes seen above the 
Watergate as we drove from under it, have 
been reproaching my memory all the day. 
I trust you will not reproach me for my 
failure to identify little Eed Eiding Hood 
with the tall svlphide whose eves were alone 
unchanged. Dr. Holmes will have told you 
that I had expected time to stand still with you.'' 

Eosy enough was Muriel as she answered, 
^* It is six years since you saw me, sir ; 
but I do not think I am much changed— 
except that I am taller — and older." 

" Not changed ! by " the hasty and 

expressive ejaculation was arrested by Dr. 
Holmes, who taking a hint from his daughter 
introduced Lieutenant Wynne to her : and 
with her, to lively chit-chat in which Muriel 
bore her part with smiling satisfaction. He, 
however, made an opportunity to inquire 
after her grandmother and uncle, and the 
hospitable Kingsleys before they were 
interrupted. 



48 FORBIDDEX TO MAURY. 

The race was over, the crowd dis- 
persing. There was quarrelling, and 
fighting, and shouting on the course ; 
horsemen and carriages were quitting the 
scene. 

A young lady and an elderly gentleman 
were seated in the curricle with Mrs. Wynne, 
and the latter looked around for her son, as 
if unwilling to drive away without him. 

It was with no small chagrin that she 
discovered him in animated conversation 
with the country doctor and " two creatures 
in white muslin " on the Walls, close to 
the Watergate, the wide arch of which the 
vehicle was slowly approaching. 

A servant, despatched with the message, 
" Mrs. Wynne is waiting, sir," bore back the 
answer, "I am at Mrs. Wynne's service;" 
but he did not hear the young lieutenant 
express his hope that he should see Miss 
D'Anyer again before he left the neighbour- 
hood, or observe the mutual looks of regret 
as he took leave. 




CHAPTEE III. 

A SCENE IN A THEATRE. 

jE. HOLMES had put up his horse and 
secured accommodation for himself at 
the Falcon Inn, in Bridge Street, another 
of the quaint old timbered buildings common 
enough then, but now regarded by the anti- 
quary and historian as relics of the past ; by 
the utilitarian and sanatarian as decaying^ 
rubbish, cumbering the ground. It was in. 
good preservation, and notwithstanding the 
many inns in the city, was full to overflowing, 
when the doctor led his daughter and Muriel 
thither, and ordered tea with a good, substan- 
tial joint to cut at, and a tankard of ale in 
addition, for himself. 

" Eat away, my lasses," said he, " there's 
neither griffin nor dragon here to stint you, 
and the Falcon's a good provider ; " and 

VOL. II. E 



so FORBIDDEy TO MARRY. 

he rubb2d his podgy hands together with 
glee on finding how well they obeyed him. 
And no wonder they found appetites, seeing 
that a cake or two, bought from an itinerant 
vendor, had served for their noontide meal, 
and that their early breakfast was neither too 
plentiful, nor sumptuous. 

Whilst knives and forks did their duty, 
tongues were not silent ; father and daughter 
liad naturally much to ask and answer. 
Amongst other matters came the question 
from Lucinda Holmes, 

'' Is Asa Booth with you still? " 

*' Yes ; or I could not be sitting here so 
comfortably. He's been with me so long, 
the country patients take to him as naturally 
as ducks to the water; and I've no 
desperate cases on hand. Ah! he's a fine 
fellow, is Asa ; cool and steady, feels a 
pulse, or looks at a tongue with the gravity 
of an old physician. There's more than one 
farmer's daughter with a mind for Asa ; but 
he says, ' he's no mind for them.' " 

" I should think not, indeed," and Lucinda 




A SCENE IN A THEATRE, 51 

gave her head a scornful toss, " unless he 
meant to turn cow-doctor." 

" Aye, or set up an opposition to Maggy 
Blackburn there in the Forest," and the sug- 
gestion appeared to tickle the doctor, he 
laughed so heartily at his own sally. Even 
Lucinda seemed amused. 

Muriel's curiosity was excited. "Who is 
Maggy Blackburn?" she asked turning to 
the doctor with some interest. 

Doctor Holmes had a merry eye, and it 
twinkled knowingly. 

" Who is she ? Wasn't at her birth and 
can't say — what she is would puzzle the black 
gentleman with a tail to tell. It is more 
than forty years since she set up in the 
forest as nurse and doctress ; for I was but 
a Uttle fellow at the time, — and sure she 
has a knowledge of herbs and simples — aye 
and of herbs that are not simples — that 
many an apothecary has not. And she has 
known how to turn her skill to account. It 
is not only ignorant country-folk that she 
doctors. They say she is a witch and are half 

£ 2 



52 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. 

afraid of her ; but many a post-chaise, and 
many a coronetted-coach has driven through 
the forest to Maggy Blackburn's door ; and it 
is said that more has been done under her roof 
than has ever seen hght. May be, there's no 
knowing, those bad lads of hers have helped 
to make an evil name for her, poachers are 
never in good odour with foresters. Any- 
how, there are queer tales afloat, and " — here 
he tapped the table with the blade of his 
horn-handled knife, meditatively, dropping 
his voice to be unheard beyond the range of 
their own table — " a coach and six came on 
a mysterious errand to the Forest House in 
mistake for Maggy Blackburn's one night, 
and let the Kingsleys into the secret of 
Maggy's doings. But there," and he pushed 
his plate away, " these tales are not for 
young lasses." 

Muriel had listened, breathless. 

" Surely Uncle Sam and Aunt Lydia could 
not know of any wickedness, or they would 
never have had her in their house. I saw 
her tending aunt ; and she brought a boy 



A SCENE ly A THEATRE, 53 

with her they called Jem. One of my uncles 
seemed curious about him. Do you know 
who he is?" she asked. 

Dr. Holmes began to fill a long clay pipe, 
and the tobacco apparently required much 
manipulation, he did it so deliberately. 

" We-11," said he, slowly, as he lit his pipe 
at a wax taper set on the mantel-piece for 
such service, "I may have my suspicions, 
but no one cares to meddle with Maggy 
Blackburn's business. Maggy nursed Lydia's 
mother, and laid her out when she died, 
and perhaps that's why your aunt takes to 
her. But now, dears," and he pulled a bell- 
rope, suspended in the middle of the room 
with a brass acorn for weight and handle, 
"Mrs. Adams or the chambermaid will show 
you to a room where you may tittivate 
yourselves a bit, for I mean to take you 
to the play." 

" The play ! " 

The exclamation was simultaneous, and 
both black eyes and brown lighted up at the 
word, but the intonation was different. 



54 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY, 

Lucinda had been to the theatre with her 
father once or twice, and had visited the 
shows on the Ju sting-field at Fair times with 
the other girls, and had witnessed the 
performance of a party of strolling players 
in a barn before she left Northwich. Muriel 
had only the remembrance of a pantomime 
seen in her childhood, but she had heard her 
father and relations talk of tragedies and 
comedies, and had early made acquaintance 
with Shakespeare in Theobald's edition from 
her father's bookshelves, until she had a 
strong desire to see an acted play. But there 
had also been the counter influence of her 
three years with the Misses Briscoe, to whom 
a theatre was but a single remove from the 
bottomless pit, the Chester play-house 
essentially so. Mrs. Hopley too had strong 
views on the subject. 

MurieVs quick "Oh, thank you ! " was 
followed by, " Do you think it would be right 
for us to go, sir ? Mrs. Hopley " 

" Bother Mrs. Hopley ! Let her say what 
fihe likes," cried audacious Lucinda. 



A SCESE /y J THEAmK $5 

Her father smiled ; between the whiffs of 
his pipe he said, " 111 make it all right with 
the old lady, don't let that trouble you ; " 
and Muriel, not confident enough to make 
a fuller explanation before strangers, fol- 
lowed Lucinda and their conductress, 
though, it must be confessed, somewhat 
dubiously. 

The history of the Chester Theatre had 
something to do with this, for though Muriel 
was not puritanic sh^ had the fullest 
reverence for sacred things. 

It so happened that its site was not 
propitious. The ancient church of St. 
Nicholas had at oue time been transferred 
to St. Oswald, but either the saints disagreed 
or their representatives, and the sacred fane 
was deserted for more than half-a-century. 
It was then converted to secular uses as 
the Common Hall of the City, and St. 
Nicholas being the lawyers' patron saint, 
there might be some pretence of fitness, but 
that it should afterwards degenerate into a 
mart for wool — a Wool Hall, and finally 



56 FOUBWDEN TO MARRY. 

become a play-house and a licensed Theatrc- 
Eoyal was not so fit. 

These chani^es had been wrou^jht in the 
course of centuries, and few who entered the 
obscure building under the shadow of the 
Cathedral, ever thought of its original 
use. 

Mr. Holmes did not. He led the two 
white-robed damsels past the great doors of 
a ^vaggoner's warehouse on the ground floor, 
and up the staircase to the hall above, with- 
out troubling himself about the ancient uses 
of the edifice. He had taken places for the 
pit, and was more concerned in finding good 
seats for his companions than in aught else. 

* 

Not so Muriel. Miss Briscoe had so 
impressed on her young mind in her 
pompous orations that all who entered the 
desecrated building were doomed to per- 
dition, that she could not shake off a feeling 
of uneasiness ; and after a time ventured to 
entrust Mr. Holmes with her doubts and 
apprehensions. 

" My good Miss lyAnyer," said he, " don't 



A SCENE IN A THEATRE. 57 

perplex your young brain with questions so 
abstruse. The monks of St. Werburgh were not 
so scrupulous when they turned the building 
over to the citizens for common uses ; and 
after centuries of legal wrangling, and of 
mercantile chaffering, there can be little of 
holiness or sanctity left to the old walls. 
Besides, the stage has been a great teacher; 
it has its own code of morals ; and its sermons 
are not to be despised. I always treat my- 
self to the play whenever I can afford a 
holiday, though that is not often, and I take 
the dlace as I find it, without a thought what 
it has been. Besides, did not the monks have 
mystery-plays on this very spot ? Listen to 
the music, child, and make your mind 
easv." 

She took his advice, listened to the music, 
and glanced at the seats right and left called 
the boxes, though they bore little resemblance 
to, the curtained boxes of modern theatres, 
and soon became interested in her sur- 
roundings, albeit not wholly convinced by 
the doctors arguments. The seats were 



S8 FORBIDDEN TO MAUKY, 

gradually filling, but oue box near the stage 
remained unoccupied. 

There was a tolerable orchestra, and the 
music soon carried her out of herself. A 
countryman, dressed in his best Sunday smock, 
sat on her right, companioned by a respectably 
attired young woman whose rusticity seemed 
to have long worn off. To this man every- 
thing appeared strange, but he had an ear 
for the music, and made his comments 
audibly, regardless of his companion's 
frequent " nudges " and hints to " be quiet, 
Zack, do ! " 

"Eh, that's foine!" cried he, "that's 
grand! It's worth a' the brass to yer that, 
by gum ! It's better nor th' music i' Gresford 
Church ! Oi sings i' th' quire i' Gresford 
Church, Miss," he vouchsafed, addressing 
Muriel complacently. 

" Do you ? " said Muriel briefly. 

" Yoi," he answered — when further com- 
munication was cut off by the ringing of the 
prompter's bell and the rise of the green 
curtain. 



A SCSyE IN A THEATRE. 59 

The play was The Jealous Wife. As the 
curtain rose, "Mr. and Mrs. Oakley" entered 
wrangling, and came forward to the foot- 
lights with a letter under excited discussion. 
Barely had a sentence been uttered when the 
countryman rose to his feet, gave a pluck 
at his companion's sleeve and cried, " Coom 
lass, it's toime to goo, dunno thee see they're 
talking business, it is na' mannerly to stop 
an' hearken." 

" Do sit still, Zack ; that's part of the play," 
whispered the young woman, puUing him 
down to his seat. " Don't ye see all the other 
folk sit still." 

He looked round, scratched Lis shock 
red head, and resumed his seat as bidden, 
looking on and listening with open mouth ; 
but preserving tolerable silence. At the end 
of the first act he again rose to go, and was 
again called to order. His pockets were 
apparently filled with nuts, the remnants of 
some winter store, for he amused himself 
between the acts with cracking them betwixt 
his teeth. All at once, as if inclined to be 



6o FORBIDDEN TO MAURY. 

extra civil and generous, he offered a handful 
of his nuts to Muriel, and when she quietly 
declined, he became pressing. 

" Yea, do. Miss, fur they're so hard oi 
conna crack 'em ! " 

Again there was a pull at the man's ' sleeve. 

" Hush, Zack, behave yoursel'. Don't you 
see you're annoying Miss." Then speaking 
across him to Muriel, " Please, Miss, I hope as 
you'll excuse Zack. He's my cousin, but he's 
never been to a play before." 

The fellow stammered out something about 
not meaning to offend ; Muriel, half inclined 
to laugh, bent her head in assent to the 
apologist, and after this " Zack " subsided, 
much to the comfort of Muriel who had seen 
a party enter the unoccupied " box," in which 
she recognized, besides Mrs. Wynne and her 
son, the young lady and old gentleman whom 
she had seen in the curricle on the Eoodee. 

Mr. Holmes and Lucinda observed the 
new arrivals also, as who did not, for their 
entrance disturbed "the house;" but the 
trio in the pit remained unrecognized, even 



A SCEXE IN A THEATRK 6i 

when Mrs. Wynne put her gold eyeglass up 
to scan the opposite boxes, passing over the 
pit with a glance too cursory to take in more 
than its general aspect, as if its occupants 
could be of no account to her, and were 
beneath notice. 

Their arrival certainly distracted Muriel's 
attention no little. She found herself wonder- 
ing who the young lady sitting next to Arthur 
Wynne could be. She was not long left in 
doubt. Between the acts, Lucinda, who had 
given them all a good stare, leaned across her 
father and whispered: 

" I say, Muriel, that's Sir Madoc Wynne 
and his daughter, and that other young fellow 
at the back is Sir Jenkyn Jenkinson. He's 
been abroad on the grand tour (she pro- 
nounced it tower), and only came back last 
year when his father, old Sir Jenkyn, died. 
Matilda Parkes (the gossip of the work-room) 
says he's over head and ears in love with 
Miss Wynne, and follows her like her shadow ; 
though everyone knows she's as good as 
promised to her cousin. It's a fine thing for 



62 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. 

her to have two strings to her bow, and 
never a beau at all for either you or me, 
except my old father here." 

"That's just what Asa wanted to know the 
other day, whether Miss Lucinda had a beau. 
I shall be able to answer him now," said Mr. 
Holmes slyly. 

" I don't care if you do," replied Lucinda, 
with a toss of the head ; and iust then the 
curtain rose again. 

"So that is Sir Madoc of the Plas," 
thought Muriel, "he's a fine, hearty, old 
gentleman, though he does take so much 
snuff. And how his snuff-box sparkles, it 
might be all diamonds. I like him better 
than his daughter ; there is something scorn- 
ful and imperious about her. I should not 
think she would suit Mr. Arthur, though she 
is so handsome; and that gold-llama dress does 
set her off wonderfully, though it is far too 
low in the neck, and the sleeves are much too 
short, to my mind. That thin gauze scarf 
is no covering for her bare neck. I wonder 
if those beads and bracelets are topazes or 



A SCENE IN A THEATRE. 63 

amber ? I should have thought Mrs. Wynne 
would have told her to cover herself, but she 
does not seem much better. Well, I know it's 
the fashion ; but my mother would never ex- 
pose herself for fashion, I'm certain. I should 
think Captain Wynne would not like it, or 
Mr. Arthur either. How she looks up at 
him, and what large black eyes she has ! 
What is she whisperiug to him behind her 
fan ? Dear me ! What business is it of 
mine ? " 

Still her eyes and fancies would stray to 
the box on their left, in spite of her interest 
in the performance, or her attempts to con- 
vince herself that its occupants, their dress or 
their doings could be no affair of hers. 

The curtain fell on the denouement of 
the "Jealous Wife; "and in a few minutes 
rose on a forest scene and a comic singer. 
But ere the singer could utter a note, up 
started the countryman from his seat by 
Muriel's side, pointed towards the scene, and 
in a tone of unqualified amazement, heard 
all over the house, exclaimed. 



64 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. 

"Whoi! if theer isna' Gresford Wood! 
How did they get Gresford Wood theer? 
Whoi, Miss," and he addressed himself to 
Muriel once more, thus calling general atten- 
tion to her. " Whoi, Miss, oi goo through 
yon wood every Sunday to church, oi do ! " 

" Sit down, will you, Zack, I tell you ! It's 
only painted ; " and his better informed cousin 
pulled him forcibly down. 

"Painted! Is it? By gum ! I thought it 
wur the wood itsel'," he exclaimed, still in 
bewilderment. 

Eare tribute that to the scene-painter. 

It was anything but pleasant to Muriel, 
whose innate delicacy shrank from general 
observation; to say nothing of the drop of 
her father's family pride lurking in her blood. 
Her gipsy-hat failed to conceal the crimson 
flush of annoyance on her brow, when Lieu- 
tenant Wynne, recognizing her presence, 
bowed to her and to her friends from the 
box. 

It was meant as courtesy, but it only 
served to make her more conspicuous and 



A SCENE m A THEATBE. 65 

uncomfortable. She saw a scornful gleam 
in tlie questioning black eyes of Sir Madoc's 
daughter, and could almost imagine her 
speech to Mrs. Wynne was, " Who are those 
queer people in the pit?" 

Muriel heard little or nothing of the song 
which seemed to delight Mr. Holmes so 
mightily with its chorus of "Fol-de-rol, too- 
ra-loo," and which he applauded to the echo. 
All she could think was, how to get away 
before the country fellow at her elbow again 
made her a mark for all eyes, and claimed 
association with her, in the sight of every- 
body. Who everybody was she did not stop 
to think. 

No sooner was the song over than she 
suggested, nay urged upon the good doctor 
that Mrs. Hopley would be angry if they 
stayed for the farce. They " were never out 
so late without leave," she added ; and though 
Lucinda said " Bother ! " and was inclined 
to brave Mrs. Hopley's displeasure, her 
father took Muriel's view of the subject ; and 
rose to lead them forth. 

VOL. n. F 



66 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. 

There was a movement in the side-box. 
As they reached the head of the stairs, they 
were joined by the lieutenant. 

" I am afraid that country bumpkin has 
driven your fair charge away," said he, 
addressing the doctor, adding : " If you will 
conduct your daughter down this awkward 
staircase, I will take care of Miss D'Anyer," 
bowing gracefully and taking her hand as 
he spoke. A word or two he said about the 
play — was sorry she had been annoyed — 
hoped she had been entertained, and that 
they might shortly meet again — to all of 
which she answered in a sort of bewildered 
dream, and in Uttle more than monosyllables 
— and then he shook hands and returned to 
his party — to find his seat occupied by Sir 
Jenkyn Jenkinson, Miss Wynne occupied 
with Sir Jenkyn ; Sir Madoc taking a long- 
drawn pinch of snuff, and Mrs. Wynne 
fanning herself irritably. 



CHAPTEE IV. 



MRS. Wynne's mistake. 




fOULD that be the same Muriel who went 
back at night to the crowded attic, 
as the one who had left it in the morning 
with the weariness of weeks in her gait 
and bearing? Her tranquil, patient eyes 
had a new light. Her doubts had been 
resolved. Arthur Wynne was neither 
haughty nor ungrateful, whatever his 
patrician mother might be ; and she would 
fain think Mr. Holmes and Lucinda both in 
error respecting her, though her faith was 
certainly shaken. The fresh air, the exercise, 
the gay scene, the excellent repast provided 
by the good surgeon, had all tended to 
refresh weary body and spirit ; but more 
than all the pleasant surprises of the day, 
the meeting with Mrs. Parry and Mr. Arthur 

F 2 



6S FORBIDDEN TO MASRY. 

Wynne, had served to cheer and brighten 
her. 

It was not much the latter had said, but 
quite enough to show that she was 
remembered gratefully, though as a child, 
and that his surprise at finding her a woman 
was not an unpleasant one. Moreover, his 
inquiries had embraced her grandmother, 
and uncle, and the Kingsleys. It was clear 
he did not seek to ignore them all. And 
nothing proved it so much as his open 
recomition in the theatre when surrounded 
by his own friends. 

From the importance she attached to the 
discovery, it would seem as if there had been 
a doubt lingering in her mind and troubling 
her. But in monotonous, uneventful lives, 
small matters do assume undue importance. 
Not that the retention or loss of a friend is a 
small matter by any means. At all events, 
she was blithe now the doubt was resolved. 

Mr. Holmes called early in the morning. 
He had an interview with Mrs. Hopley, 
during which the little mantua-maker took 




MBS. Wl'XJS'E'S MISTAKE. 69 

lofty ground. She dwelt on the self-will and 
discontent and indolence of the young women, 
to whom she "considered she had been almost 
a mother, training them, as she said, for 
future lives of industry and usefulness, by 
judicious discipline. Kothing was to be done 
without discipline in an establishment like 
hers. She was bound to keep insubordination 
down. And it was a difficult matter with 
two girls like Matilda Parkes and Lucinda 
Holmes under her roof ready at all times to 
incite others to rebellion. The best she 
could say for his daughter was that she had 
selected a good companion. She had certainly 
improved since Miss D'Anyer came, but that 
was not saying much, there was room for it ; 
and if Miss D'Anyer had taken to grumbling 
she was of opinion that companionship with 
Miss Holmes had not improved her.'' 

This was not a pleasant hearing for a father 
who had to take another's word for his 
daughter's conduct, and who knew of old 
that she had something of a spirit. It stirred 
the easy man to say, "Miss D'Anyer did not 



70 FORBIDDEN TO MABRY. 

grumble ; but a doctor can read faces and 
appearances, and their faces spoke loudly 
enough. They spoke of too much work, and 
too little sleep, food, and fresh air. I should 
prescribe all three. Madam. At all events, 
Lucinda's insubordination will not trouble you 
long, thank God!" And he walked away 
quite in a fluster, leaving Mrs. Hopley to 
recover her composure at leisure. He was 
however afraid he had not much mended 
matters by his interference, and \Vas glad to 
get the two girls out of the house to share 
a substantial breakfast with him at his inn, 
before he started for Northwich. 

That he ought to be on the road betimes 
he knew; although Asa Booth, his young 
assistant, had come into his surgery when a 
boy, as a pupil, and he could leave his ordi- 
nary patients to his care, there were cases not 
to be so left, and he was anxious to get back ; 
but for some unexplained reason he lingered, 
even after he had borne them company to the 
rapidly filling Walls, and declared he could 
not stay. 



MBS, WYNNE'S MISTAKK 71 

" I am sorry I must leave you both," he 
said, as at length he was going ; " not that 
any harm is likely to come to you, if you go 
home before the last race. When the young 
bucks, who have been drinking over their 
losings and winnings, leave the Eoodee, your 
safest place is the house, since you have no 
protector. And, my dears, should Lieutenant 
Wynne seek you out, and join your prome- 
nade — though I have great respect for the 
gentleman — endeavour to shorten your walk. 
There is so wide a gap between the mantua- 
maker's work-room and the Wynnes' carriage, 
that — that — well — a girl who respects herself 
will not care to be seen with the red-coats, 
when there are no old folk on guard. Mind, I 
have not a word to say against Lieutenant 
Wynne — but — it's best to be on the safe 
side. So now, good-bye. Miss D'Anyer, 
good-bye, Lucinda ! Be good lasses ; and 
take care of yourselves. Til come or send 
for you when your time's up, Lu." 

The surgeon had no doubt seen in Arthur 
Wynne's face that his expressed desire to 



72 FORBIDDEN TO MABBY. 

meet Miss D'Anyer again was something more 
than mere compliment, and his word of ad- 
vice was kindly meant. Muriel had won his 
approbation, as a child ; and he could not 
forget that now she was the associate of his 
daughter. That she was a good one he had 
Mrs. Hopley's grudging testimony, still the 
little woman's remarks had made him uncom- 
fortable. And he shared the common belief 
that red-coats and rakes were synonymous. 
He rode home on a somewhat uneasy saddle 
in consequence. He could but remember 
that he had himself brought Luciuda into 
contact with the officer ; aye, and her friend, 
too ; for the lieutenant would not himself 
have recognized Muriel, changed as she was. 

Miss Holmes remembered it also. 

" Dear me, what a fuss father makes, to 
be sure ! " she exclaimed as he went away. 
"If a mere red-coat makes a man more 
dangerous than a black or a blue one, why 
did he bring the lieutenant to us ? " 

" That puzzles me," responded Muriel, as 
they strolled along in the direction of the 



MB8. hTNyrS MISTAKE. 73 

Dee, past the Nun's Garden, and the Castle, 
meetinsf at every few yards familiar city 
faces, lay and cleric. "Perhaps the lieu- 
tenant asked him. You see, he knew me 
long ago, before I went to Miss Briscoe's, 
and I don't think he expected to find me 
grown up, or has any idea that I am an 
apprentice." 

She paused, and, as if on reflection, 
added : — 

" Two of my cousins are military oflBcers, 
one in the artillery, and I come of good 
family ; but, for all that, I fancy your father 
is quite right. And I know that, in any 
case, young and unprotected girls like our- 
selves cannot be too careful. Still " 

She broke off; the doctor's caution had 
set her thoughts wandering in new tracks, 
but the sun was in eclipse over all. Not 
until now had she confessed to herself that 
she looked forward eagerly to the pleasure 
of another meeting with Arthur Wynne. Not 
until now had she seen that pleasure and 
propriety were in antagonism. 



74 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. 

'•Still what?'' her companion asked, after 
a longer pause. 

Muriel's straying thoughts were recalled. 

" Still — oh, I meant that we might be 
discreet without being discourteous, should 
we chance to meet Lieutenant Wjnne ; but 
— a — I don't think the likehhood very great." 

" Don't you ? " droned out Lucinda in a 
tone of incredulity. 

Just then their attention was drawn to 
the animated scene on the racecourse below, 
where the horses were being recalled after 
a false start, and no more was said, on that 
subject. 

Presently Lucinda's sharp eyes descried 
Mrs. Wynne's pony carriage ; and she pointed 
out — unnecessarily — that the same young 
lady and elderly gentleman bore Mrs. Wjmne 
company, and that the gallant officer and Sir 
Jcnkyn were again in attendance on horse- 
back. 

Muriel drew back. 

*'Come away, Lucinda ; don't let them see 
us starinjr at them." 



MRS, WYNNE'S MISTAKE. 75 

But the race was being run, and Lucinda 
was not inclined to budge ; and soon, whether 
Muriel looked towards them or not, a cheese- 
cutter hat was doflfed in respectful salutation, 
to which a touch on Muriers elbow called 
attention. 

About half an hour later, when they had 
changed their position, and Muriel, weary of 
the shifting crowd, the cries, and the commo- 
tion, was persuading her companion to quit 
the scene and make the circuit of the city- 
walls for a quiet change, a brisk, firm step 
behind them stopped short, and in another 
minute Arthur Wynne was shaking hands 
with them. Not the slender youth with the 
pale face Muriel had first seen in the forest, 
but a fine, manly fellow nearly six feet high, 
with a noble forehead from which the hair, 
white with powder, was drawn back, thus 
exposing the long-healed scar. His dark grey 
eyes were set in well-moulded features, the 
nose being large without undue prominence, 
the lips at once tender and firm. "How 
closely he resembles his handsome father ! " 



76 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. 

was the swift thought of Muriel, as with a 
smile he began : 

" It is quite a pleasure to meet you again. 
I was afraid Mr. Holmes might have 
spirited you off with him to Eddisbury or 
to Northwich this morning. I was summoned 
away yesterday so abruptly, before I had well 
recovered my astonishment at the trans- ' 
formation of Little Eed Eiding Hood, and 
my speech with you at the theatre was so 
brief, that I had not presence of mind to ask 
if your visit to Chester would be prolonged 
through the race-week." 

This was not put as a question, yet Muriel 
felt it to be one, and perceived that he 
supposed her only a visitor; and whether 
she was moved by the caution of Mr. 
Holmes, or by a touch of her father's pride, 
she answered merely, " I am living in Chester 
at present, sir." 

He was " delighted to hear it — thought it 
was probable they might meet again before 
he rejoined his regiment. He and Mrs. 
Wynne were staying Avith relatives in the 



MBS. WYNNE'S MISTAKE, 7 

neighbourhood of Wrexham, and were 
frequently m the city. They were on their 
way to visit the same relatives when they 
had the good fortune to fall in with Red 
Eiding Hood and her friends, during Captain 
Wynne's sick leave," he said. 

Yet he did not seem to be the bearer of any 
message from his mother, and did not offer to 
take Muriel to speak to the lady, although 
the carriage was in sight and easily accessible ; 
nor did Mrs. Wynne bow, or even seem to 
recognize her, as she must surely have done 
had she known with whom her son had 
been conversing the previous afternoon, or 
had joined in the theatre, — or at least so 
the simple-minded young person thought. 

The fact was, there had been something 
narrowly approaching an altercation between 
the lady and her son overnight respecting 
that very young person. He had so openly 
expressed his gratification at a meeting 
which gave an opportunity of explaining 
apparent disrespect, and his surprise at the 
change years had effected in Miss D'Anyer, 



78 forbidde:^ to marry, 

that Mrs. Wynne's most active instincts were 
aroused, and she once more declared, — 

" The slight obligation we were under to 
those people years ago does not justify a 
renewal of the casual acquaintance. They 
had no doubt forgotten us, and there is no 
reason we should refresh their memories." 

" My father did not regard the obligation 
as slight ; and I know he would be proud to 
show respect to Miss D'Anyer were he here." 

" Oh, I do not question his Quixotism for 
a moment, but I cannot sanction hangers- 
on of that class; and I think, Arthur, that 
you might see its inconvenience, especially 
now we are staying at the Plas, and the 
furrier's grandchild has grown to woman- 
hood. How you could bow to her and the 
country apothecary she was with, and quit 
our box to join such people is positively 
astounding. It was exceedingly imprudent. 
I saw Pauline did not like it." 

" Hang Pauline ! " or something even 
stronger had almost escaped him. A quick 
compression of teeth and lips alone kept the 



MBS. WYNNE'S MISTAKE. 79 

ejaculation inaudible. He was sufficiently 
emphatic when he. added deliberately : — " I 
am not in leading-strings to my cousin yeU 
and am not inclined to shape my course by 
Pauline's fancies. She does not appear to be 
shaping her course by mine. To my mind, 
choice lies between riglit and wrong, civility 
and incivility, gratitude and ingratitude. 
The age or class of Miss D'Anyer has 
nothing to do with it. Were she a bare- 
footed beggar-girl, her claim on my 
courtesy would be the same." 

This conversation took place in Mrs. 
Wynne's private apartment at the Plas, a 
fine castellated stone mansion, the picturesque 
mountain seat of Sir Madoc Wynne, where a 
large party of guests had been drawn to- 
gether by the Chester races, the ten or 
twelve intervening miles of rough road being 
of small account to the hard riders of those 
days or to the native ponies harnessed to 
Sir Madoc's carriage, itself built to suit 
the roads, which certainly rendered running 
footmen with torches a necessity after 



8o FORBIDDEN TO MARRY, 

nightfall, and not superfluities of ostenta- 
tion ; indeed Sir Madoc was too hearty and 
genial for the latter. 

Making much of her exhaustion and fa 
tigue after the excitement of the play, 
and the perilous drive home through the 
midnight air, Mrs. Wynne had expressed 
her intention to retire immediately, and re- 
quired the assistance of her son, to enable 
her to surmount the stairs to her rooms. 
And to this no one seemed to object, 
not even Pauline. 

Mrs. Wynne herself, with all her languor 
and delicacy, had a little match-making 
on hand, it being her especial desire to secure 
Sir Madoc's daughter and heiress for her 
son. Sir Madoc and Captain Wynne were 
next of kin ; the wide estates of the baronet 
held stone for the quarrying above the 
surface, coal for the hewing beneath it ; but 
little besides the Plas itself would descend 
with the title. Pauline Wynne, the sole 
survivor of a large family of brothers and 
sisters, was three or four months older than 



MBS. WYNSE'S MISTAKE, 8i 

Arthur; but his mother had planned their 
union when the last brother died off ; and 
neither the baronet nor his daughter seemed 
averse, though hitherto only a tacit under- 
standing existed between the two most con- 
cerned. 

That he should leave the side of Pauline 
and be seen shaking hands demonstratively 
with a strange girl upon the Walls, and 
again in the theatre, was in Mrs. Wvnne's 
opinion a fatal mistake, only to be exceeded 
by the evident satisfaction with which he 
reported his first meeting with Miss D'Anyer. 
She kept her countenance at the time and 
during the ride home, reserving her opinion 
and counsel for a private interview. The 
result had left her more than ever con- 
founded. 

Imagine her chagrin when her son once 
more dismounted, and, with a bare word 
of apology, quitted the carriage side and 
his friends, to seek out the furrier's grand- 
child, and a country surgeon's daughter, 
in the very teeth of her prohibition. Arthur 

VOL. II, G 



82 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. 

must surely be insane, she thought, or under 
some strange infatuation. 

"I say, I say, there must be a powerful 
magnet on the Walls to attract your cousin 
again," observed Sir Madoc to his daughter 
with a dip into his snuff-box. 

"Yes, gratitude,^ said Pauline, with a 
faint note of irony in her tone, and straight- 
way turned her smiling attention to Sir 
Jcnkyn, who lingered near, proud to catch 
the slightest token of her favour. 

" Ah, just as I feared ! " argued the 
mother within herself. "He will lose the 
substance whilst trifling with the shadow. 
No doubt that girl will do her best to 
entangle him. Those low people are so 
artful." But she openly defended her son 
by a languid assent to that which Miss 
Pauline had put forth so doubtfully. " Yes, 
Pauline, Arthur feels constrained to be civil 
to the girl. It is so hateful to be under 
obligations to inferiors." 

Yet could Mrs. Wynne have left her 
visible body in the carriage to watch the 



MRS. WYNNE'S MISTAKE. 83 

races, and in invisible spirit have followed 
the lieutenant as he walked beside the two 
young girls who seemed to have no other 
protector, she might have convinced herself 
that Muriel was spreading no lures for her 
son, unless reserve and a sort of timid 
constraint might enchain him. 

The caution of Mr. Holmes rang in her 
cars, and gave her an uneasy feeling that it 
was her duty to dismiss the young officer. 
Yet he was so respectful, and so agreeable 
withal both to Miss Holmes and herself, that 
she knew not how to do it. And she was 
curious enough to seek information, which 
time had not brought voluntarily. 

" Yes," she was told in answer to her 
inquiries, " Captain Wynne's arm was stout 
and strong again. Miss Briscoe did not 
write to the Colonel. The recovery of the 
servant Norris had long been doubtful. He 
would be a cripple to the end of his days. 
He remained in their service, in attendance 
on Mrs. Wynne. No, the ruffians had not 
been punished. Two men named Blackburn 

G 2 



84 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. 

had been apprehended on suspicion; but 
Norris had been stunned by the first blow, 
and could not positively swear to them. 
Some people had come forward to swear an 
alibi, and the men were dismissed ; as no 
doubt Miss D'Anyer had heard. A reward 
had been offered for the capture of the 
miscreants, but no other persons had been 
apprehended, and he supposed the real 
delinquents never would be known." 

And all this while the polite lieutenant 
marvelled that Mr. Holmes should leave his 
daughter and her young friend to wander 
there unattended. It was only in reply to 
a direct query that he was told the doctor 
had gone back to Northwich ; and then he 
lingered, loth, as he said, to leave them 
unprotected. This, however, was not said 
until Muriel had suggested that Mrs. Wynne 
might feel neglected if he remained longer 
away from her. And it was not until 
Muriel had assured him more than once 
that they " were perfectly safe — no one 
would molest them whilst so many of the 



MBS. WYNNE'S MISTAKE, 85 

citizens remained on the Walls with 
their wives and daughters," that he seemed 
at all inclined to take the hint and de- 
part. 

Very courteous was his leave-taking, as 
had been his manner throughout, and Miss 
Holmes was in ecstasies when he was gone, 
frequently breaking out ia wonderment 
whether the morrow would bring the hand- 
some young officer to beau them about again. 

To her dismay, the morrow brought onlj^ 
a persistent downpour of rain, which spoiled 
the races and kept the feminine portion of 
the community within doors. 

Lucinda Holmes and the other girls 
grumbled audibly. Muriel said it was 
quite as well ; the country needed the 
rain, and it would give her an opportunity 
to write home, which she did ; her meeting 
with Lieutenant Wynne, and his politeness, 
figuring largely in her budget of news 
and inquiries. 

He had gone back to his friends with 
more reluctance than he had cared to admit. 



86 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. 



He had found Muriel the woman as 
charmingly unsophisticated as Muriel the 
child, but hedged in by a degree of reserve 
the child had not displayed. And it 
occurred to him that this reserve had 
increased since the departure of the doctor. 
No hint of her address had been vouch- 
safed, although sought in all but direct 
question ; and he must trust to chance 
for meeting with her again. The desirability 
of such other meeting did not come under 
consideration. 

The brow of Mrs. Wynne was clouded 
with displeasure on his return; there was 
a light of jealous fire in the sloe black eyes 
of his cousin Pauline, and his uncle, between 
his pinches of snuff, rallied him on his 
" devotion to the petticoats," his " enlist- 
ment in the corps of Cupid," with more 
of annoyance than of mirth in his tones. 
Arthur, whom he looked upon as his future 
son-in-law, was in especial favour with the 
good gentleman, but this open neglect of 
Pauline was, to say the least, disrespectful. 



MRS. WYN^'irS MlSTAKVi 87 

and irritating. It was not what he expected 
from his nephew. 

He found that no one but himself regarded 
his prolonged promenade with the two 
young ladies in white muslin as *' a mere 
act of courtesy." 

Yet, really it was nothing more ; and had 

not Mrs. Wynne again taken the young man 

to task for his imprudent desertion of his 

wealthy cousin, " parading to and fro with 

strange young women, in the very face ot 

Pauline, and driving her to retaliate in a 

flirtation with that odious Sir Jenkyn," it 

might never have been anything more. The 

feather might have blown away, but she 

weighted it with lead, and it went down 

into her son's heart like a plummet. 

He went to bed contrasting modest brown 
eyes with haughty black ones, and waked 
from a nightmare in which a black-eyed 
wolf was about to pounce on a brown-eyed 
Ked Eiding Hood. 




CHAPTEE V. 

ON THE WAY TO THE POST. 

ILTETATION is never a safe game for 
man or woman. Not only can two 
play at it, but its results are uncertain. 
Very sure of a man had a woman need be 
who resorts to it, whether in pique or 
retaliation. The means taken to draw are 
as likely to repel, and what is won is 
rarely worth the winning. 

Arthur Wynne had a sort of cousinly 
affection for Miss Pauline of the Plas, and 
might have drifted lightly enough into the 
harbour of matrimony with her. Indeed, 
he had begun to regard it as a not remote 
possibility, when she made the mistake of 
playing off soft-headed and soft-hearted 
Sir Jenkyn Jenkinson against him. At first 
she was in the hope of bringing her 



ON THE WAY TO THE POST. 89 

military cousin more speedily to the point, 
and, not succeeding in this, she continued 
it in pique ; and perchance carried her 
flirtation a little farther than she had 
originally intended, since the hopes of her 
devoted slave rose to flood-tide, and only 
a sudden chill stopped short an ardent 
avowal of a very sincere passion. 

Not that Pauline had thought seriously of 
encouraging Sir Jenkyn, her latest display 
was by way of jealous retaliation, and was of 
all things most unwise with a man of Arthur's 
temperament, if she wished to secure him. 
She knew that her aunt desired the family 
alliance, and that her father regarded it 
complacently, but she could not say that 
her cousin had made any special demon- 
stration of regard during his occasional 
sojourns at the Plas. He had seemed 
rather to accept a position than to assume 
it. The assumption was of the three and 
not of the one. 

Attentive and courteous he had been, as a 
gentleman and a relative ; he had joined her 



90 FORBIDDEN TO MAERY. 

in duets, and listened with delight when she 
took her Welsh harp in hand, and sang and 
played the strains of their native bards. 
He had turned over her music at a newer 
instrument, at which she was not so 
proficient, — the grand piano being but a 
recent acquisition, — and he had been a 
complimentary critic. He had held her 
skeins of silk for winding, her basket 
when slie gathered flowers ; had baited 
her hooks when they had a fishing party 
on the lake, and all with right good will ; 
but in this he was not exclusive. To 
be a partner for life was another affair. 
He had not yet given his heart wholly 
into her keeping, and whatever chance 
there was of its surrender vanished with 
her latest freak of flirtation with Sir 
Jcnkyn. 

There was always a dance at the Plas on 
the Eace Friday, and who was so distin- 
guished now as Sir Jenkyn, who of so small 
account as the lieutenant? It was Sir 
Jenkyn with whom she danced a minuet; 



OJ^ THE WAY TO THE POST. 91 

it was Sir Jenkyn who re-adjusted her floating 
scarf, who led her to her harp, and selected 
her songs, and who was privileged to whisper 
his enraptured thanks into her listening ear, 
and to receive her smiling acknowledge- 
ments ; Sir Jenkyn who basked in the smiles 
of the proud beauty until he was half beside 
himself. 

"Pon honour, I think my mother was 
right. Pauline is flirting desperately. The 
battery of her black eyes has shot that soft 
Sir Jenkyn's flowery waistcoat through and 
through. The poor fellow seems desperately 
in earnest too. Well, I'll not baulk his 
chance. If Pauline is playing with him to 
punish me, she has no heart, and mine 
is safest in my own keeping. So success to 
your wooing. Sir Jenkyn ! " 

Some such meditation sent Arthur Wynne 
riding through the rain to Chester on the 
Saturday afternoon, to keep, as he said, an 
appointment with an old friend in the 
garrison, of which nothing had been heard 
when the guests with sporting proclivities 



92 FOBBIDDEN TO MARRY. 

had set off to the races in the early morning, 
promising a list of the winning horses for 
the home sweepstake on their return. 

Mrs. Wynne frowned, Sir Madoc looked 
loftily displeased. Miss Wynne charmingly 
reproachful, but he went, with not even his 
man behind him to grumble at the rain. 
There was to be a junket in the servants' 
hall that night, for which the man Avas 
good-humouredly set at liberty. Perchance 
the master desired liberty as well as the 
man. 

A new element had unawares entered into 
his being of which his mother's reproaches 
had first made him dimly aware. He rode 
forth with his head bent to the slant rain 
with a restless longing for something 
unshaped even to his own thought, free 
to ponder and debate within himself, un- 
observed, a problem she had left for him to 
solve. 

A soldier, the son of a soldier, early in 
commission, having a handsome person and 
easy manner, society had opened its arms to 



ON THE WAY TO THE POST. 93 

him, and mothers, regarding his lieutenancy 
as a step towards a captaincy, had all but 
flung their daughters at his feet. How was 
it that despite all the charmers of all the 
garrison towns he had known, notwith- 
standing the fascinations of his cousin 
Pauline and her fortune to bout, his heart 
was sound ? 

This was the problem he set himself to 
solve in that cheerless twelve-mile ride. 
The rain had almost ceased by the time he 
reached Dee Bridge (which then long and 
narrow span of seven arches was the only 
communication between Chester and North 
Wales), and when he paid his toll at the 
Bridge-gate, after making his way through 
a throng of mud-bespattered ponies and 
frieze-coated Welshmen, some with pretty 
Welshwomen mounted on pillions behind, he 
had answered his own question by others. 

Could it be that he had set up a mere 
child he had lived with a single week as his 
ideal? Had he unconsciously brought 
elegant women of fashion, wit, grace, 



94 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. 

refinement into comparison with that 
simple maiden who had not even beauty to 
commend her? Nothing but a pair of soft 
brown eyes and a voice Hke a seraph's song. 

Nothing more? Yes, a shower of silken 
curls, an agile form, a pair of tripping feet 
matched with round white arms, teeth like 
two rows of pearls — but expression was the 
charm. There was no gainsaying it. He 
had certainly shrined little Eed Kiding Hood 
in his memory, a memory of unselfish de- 
votion to utter strangers ; of unstudied gifts 
and graces fresh from the mint of God. He 
liad looked in lovely faces since, but they 
bore the stamp of the world, and had not 
satisfied his soul. 

He had rarely stood before a glass to 
brush his hair, or sat there to have it dressed 
and powdered by his man, but he, seeing the 
scar, had remembered the pitying face that 
bent over him, the gentle fingers that picked 
out the broken glass and bound up his 
wounded brow so tenderly. And now that 
the child was gone, and he a man, he had 



ON THE WAY TO THE POST. 95 

touched that gentle hand again, had looked 
on those 50ft brown eyes, on a face no longer 
disfigured, and it mattered not to him whether 
Pauline Wynne flirted with Sir Jenkyn or 
John Jones. 

Mrs. Wynne had lent him a key to his 
own heart ; he had unlocked it and looked in. 

He must have forgotten his appointment, 
for he passed the end of Castle Street with- 
out turning his head, rode on up Bridge 
Street to the Plume of Feathers' Inn, and 
gave his horse in charge to an ostler without 
asking for any friend in waiting. Then walk- 
ing on to the junction of Chester's four main 
thoroughfares — where Cromwell found a fine 
cross of stone, and left behind only its name 
— ^he turned sharply to his right up East- 
gate Street, leaving the muddy roadway 
for the- uneven pebbly pavement, and having 
passed under the sweeping arch of the East- 
gate, turned up a narrow alley on the 
immediate left of Foregate Street into Post 
Office Yard, the location also of the Excise. 

There he dropped into the postal box a 



96 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. 

couple of letters, one bearing the address of 
Captain Wynne, the depot at Chatham (the 
main regiment was on service in St. Domingo), 
and received from the postmaster in answer 
to his enquiry a franked missive with a great 
red seal, and two newspapers, the Times and 
the Morning Post. 

He left the cramped-up Post Office for the 
open street, thrust the small newspapers into 
his breeches' pocket, glanced over his brief 
communication, and stood for a moment hesi- 
tating whether he could, as a gentleman, ask 
the Misses Briscoe for the address of Miss 
D'Anyer, seeing that she herself had not 
vouchsafed it. Had he gone he would have 
found disappointment in the shape of a 
sprawling " To Let " on a desolate house. 

Turning to retrace his steps through the 
unwonted bustle of Foregate Street, along 
which crowds were hurrying singly and in 
groups, on foot, on horseback, in vehicles, 
in all stages of drink and excitement, pour- 
ing out of the city at the close of the last 
day's race, he saw a young woman in a 



f 



ON THE WAY TO THE POST. 97 

cloak and pattens waiting with a letter in 
her hand as if for a favourable opportunity 
to cross the road to the Post Office ; the hood 
of her cloak well drawn over her bonnet as a 
protection from the rain, which was not quite 
over. Courtesy prompted him to hasten to 
assist her, but ere he could do so, or recognize 
her features, two drunken boors jostled her 
from the narrow footpath into the roadway. 
The insecurity of patten-rings on pebble- 
pavement caused her to lose her footing, 
and she fell in the very front of a 
horse and vehicle advancing at a reckless 
pace. 

Another second, and the animal's hoofs 
would have been down upon the prostrate 
girl; but there was Arthur Wynne's strong 
hand at the horse's head to force and keep 
him back. It was at his own imminent 
peril, for the horse, suddenly checked in a 
mad race with another, started and plunged, 
and swerved aside. People shouted ; the 
driver vociferated angrily, yet pulled the 
reins ; a passer-by helped the cloaked figure 

VOL. II. H 



98 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. 

to her feet ; she was again on the path i 
out of danger. 

The horse was released and on its wa 
and then the brave young officer pressed fo 
ward to assist the young person, who seeme 
scarcely able to stand. 

A startled exclamation burst from hi; 
lips. "Miss D'Anyer! You! Thank God 
I was at hand ! I trust you are uninjured/' 

Yes, it was Muriel, — she who had been 
in his thoughts all that day, of whom he 
had dreamed in the night, whose where- 
abouts he had been so desirous to learn, 
leaning for support against a wall, faint and 
pale with pain and fright, her bonnet crushed, 
hands and cloak muddy, one patten on, the 
other, with her letter, in the roadway, 
crushed, as she might have been, under 
hoofs and wheels. 

She heard the voice, and recognized it 
with a sort of hazy thankfulness, a temporary 
surrender to the sick and dizzy feeling 
which made speech impossible. She had a 
dim sense of a supporting arm, of the same 




ON THE WAY TO THE POST 99 

voice saying, " Brandy, someone, quick ! 
she is fainting ! " of a glass which some good 
soul had already brought being offered to 
her quivering lips, and then a brief oblivion. 

The Hop-Pole Inn was close at hand ; 
but her supporter hesitated to carry her 
thither, seeing how its doors and windows 
were occupied with fellows fresh from the 
race-course in all stages of excess and 
inebriation, filling the air with tobacco fumes 
and blasphemy. He could not take Miss 
D'Anyer thither. Better the unpolluted 
atmosphere of the open street, and the 
compassionate crowd collected by the 
accident. Her light weight was nothing to 
him — the nameless thrill which ran through 
every fibre of his being as he upheld her of 
course did not count. 

He had been wise, for the cool air playing 

on her cheek revived her. He was glad to 

see the closed eyelids open and recollection. 

return, though with it a faint carmine flushed 

the sensitive cheek, and the head from 

which the crushed bonnet had been with- 

H 2 



100 FOBBIDDEX TO MAURY. 

drawn by a woman, was raised from liis 
breast. 

As she slowly recovered from her brief 
swoon, under the influence of fresh air and 
brandy administered with a teaspoon, 
recollection came of a rude thrust, a twisted 
patten and ankle, a fall, a glimpse of a 
monstrous horse, a dread of a crashing hoof, 
a confusion of cries and sounds, the rush of 
someone to the rescue, of a hand dragging 
her up, of her own swift thankfulness. 

It was like waking from a dream ; yet 
there was her deliverer, and her ankle 
pained her when she strove to stand alone. 
Still she made the effort bravely, alarmed at 
finding the daylight going, people around her, 
a woman tying on her bonnet, herself in 
Arthur Wynne's clasp ; though her gratitude 
was too great for expression, and she felt 
that his presence there was nothing less 
than providential. 

There was a conflict of feeling in her 
breast, as she strove to support herself, desire 
to get back to Watergate Street being upper- 



ON THE WAY TO THE POST. loi 

most for the time. Then she remembered 
her letter, only to be told that it was beaten 
and trodden into the earth, at which a shade 
passed over her face. She might not have 
such another opportunity in a hurry. 

Arthur Wynne misunderstood her look. 
"I hope your letter was not important, 
though I fear it must have been, or you 
would never have ventured out alone on such 
an afternoon as this. The streets are 
positively unsafe for ladies." 

'' It was a letter to my mother, sir, and she 
would think it of very small account against 
the life you have saved. I know you have 
earned her gratitude as well as mine." 

She interrupted a low-voiced speech on her 
prior claim to his gratitude, with the huil'ied 
observation, " You are very kind ; but I am 
better, thank you, and I must go home." 

But going home alone was an impossibility, 
though she left behind her remaining patten, 
and made the attempt bravely. 

" Do, Miss D'Anyer, lean on me and allow 
me to support you to your home. But you 



I02 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. 

really are unfit to walk at all. Pray, permit 
me to send someone for a chair." 

"Oh, no, thank you, sir. You are very 
obliging, but — oh, dear no ; I could not go 
home in a sedan. I must indeed do my 
best to walk." She had a vision of Mrs. 
Hopley's consternation at the arrival of one 
of her apprentices in a sedan-chair, and she 
under-rated the effort to walk. 

"Then you must certainly accept the 
support of my arm. I should be a brute to 
suffer you to proceed alone," he added, 
drawing her hand to a firm rest as he 
spoke. 

However reluctantly, she was compelled by 
pain to accept Lieutenant Wynne's proffer; 
and whether he was more pleased or sorry at 
her refusal to go home in a sedan is scarcely 
to be told : or whether she was more thankful 
for his support, or ashamed to take his arm 
in her deplorable plight, is just as doubtful. 

It was not that her scarlet cloth cloak was 
muddy, or that her bonnet had suffered too, 
— though he would scarcely have cared to 



ON THE WAT TO THE POST, 103 

meet acquaintance by the way, — made hira 
suggest the chair. It was that he saw the 
pain each step occasioned. And seeing it, he 
wondered at her refusaL But the resolution 
with which she made light of pain won his 
admiration. And he concluded she had an 
all-sufficient motive for rejecting his proposi- 
tion, with so much agony as an alternative, 
and in all his intercourse with his cousin, 
Pauline Wynne, he had never felt the touch 
of her jewelled fingers as he felt whilst 
Muriel's mittened hand rested on his arm, 
or gave an involuntary grip when an out- 
sized pebble in the uneven pavement caused a 
sharper twinge than before. Gladly would 
he have suffered in her stead, and he told her 
so, and bade her lean upon him more 
securely. 

" You cannot think what a pleasure it is 
to serve you, however slightly. Or how 
proud I should be to escort you, were it not 
that I feel you are suffering at every step." 

They had turned the corner of St. Peter's 
Church at The Cross, and were almost at 



104 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. 

the top of Watergate Street, when he said 
this, looking down into her face and stop- 
ping to give her a moment's rest. Just 
then a party of exhilarated horsemen from 
the Eoodee came dashing up Watergate 
Street and swept round the corner of Bridge 
Street on their way to the Plas. 

" Halloo, Wynne ! What pretty gipsy 
have you picked up ? " cried one, without 
slackening speed. 

"Bravo, lieutenant!" called out another 
amid waving hats and a chorus of hurrahs ; 
and the gallant young officer knew that 
they were carrying to the Plas more news 
than the promised "List of the Winners." 

Muriel shrank within herself as these 
elated gentry shouted and hoorayed, and 
felt as if she in her disreputable appearance 
had somehow compromised her brave and 
generous protector in the sight of his 
friends. She wished then she had thought 
less of Mrs. Hopley's indignation, and more 
of consequences to her courteous companion. 
Then the caution of Dr. Holmes came 



ON THE WAY TO THE POST. 105 

back to her with crushing force. She, 
sent away from home for reasons to her 
inscrutable, overtasked and overworked, un- 
bared for by the mistress to whom she 
^a,s bound, associating with girls of a lower 
ffi^ade, had felt as if a breath from Paradise 
^£td wafted across her since Arthur had 
*lxaken hands with her again. He was so 
^ind, so gentlemanhke, so respectful; and 
^ow did she not owe her life to his braverv ? 
Yet she saw clearly, that for his sake not less 
^lian her own, she must cut oflf the right 
tand of a friendship at once so pleasant and 
so unsuitable. 

There was but a simple name-plate on 

Mrs. Hopley's door; nothing to indicate 

the calling of those within ; but before they, 

making slow progress under shelter of the 

Eow, had reached it, her resolve was taken, 

and there, leaning against the door-post, she 

thanked him again for the service he had 

rendered, but apologized for her inability to 

invite him within, on the ground that she 

was but an apprentice to the mantua-maker 



io6 FOBBIDDEN TO MABBY. 

whose name was on the door ; though it 
cost her no small effort to make the admission. 

If she had expected a recoil, she was un- 
deceived. Whatever might be his surprise — 
and he was surprised — he did not show it. 

" You will, at least, permit me to inquire 
after you, Miss D'Anyer, before my leave 
expires? The injury you have sustained 
will keep me most uneasy until assured of 
your recovery." 

The moisture in her eyes was unseen in 
the deepening twilight; but he could feel 
the hand tremble he held so firmly in his 
clasp, as she cut down the bridge of hope 
with the words : 

" I feel your kindness, sir, and shall • not 
forget it. But I have no friends in Chester. 
I am utterly alone and unprotected here, 
and you really must not call. And now let 
me thank you once more, and say 'good-bye,' 
as we said it years ago in Delamere." 

"I resi)ect your scruples," he replied, 
*' and will not intrude. But I will say 
* good- night,' and not 'good-bye,' and trust 



ON THE WAY TO THE POST, 107 

in Providence to meet with you again," and 
with as graceful courtesy as if she had been 
a duchess, he raised her hand to his lips, 
and with a bow departed. 

With his departure night seemed to have 

set in for Muriel. She opened the door, 

groped her way up the dark staircase, 

halting on every step, and hoping to find 

a light in the work-room ;* but it was 

deserted. There was a noise and a scuffle 

in the nursery, as if the children were going 

to bed. She opened the door softly. She 

was a favourite there. The children, big and 

little, dressed and undressed, came crowding 

around her, with wondering questions and 

alarm, to which her pale face, her crushed 

bonnet, muddy cloak, and halting gait gave 

rise. 

She explained that she had been knocked 
down, nearly run over, had sprained her 
ankle, and wanted a light ; but she did not 
think it essential to name the gentleman 
who had preserved her, or to say that he 
had brought her to the door. 



loS FORBIDDEN TO MARRY, 

She said she was faint and weary, and 
would go to bed ; and the servant-lass, seeing 
how ill she appeared, offered to bathe the 
injured ankle ; but no one suspected that 
her heart was aching worse than the foot, 
though she lay in bed all the morrow, her 
only companion and comforter being her 
mother's priceless gift, the little silver-clasped 
Bible. 

And surely she had need of her guide and 
comforter. If she bore her daily burden 
passively, it was not because she did not 
know its weight, but that she never added to 
it with useless murmuring. 

Most of the other girls gave vent to their 
irritation, or indignation, or splenetic feeling 
in divers ways. Snappish words, snapped 
threads, a slip of scissors or needle in spiteful 
inadvertence, the upset of a pin-tray, the 
snuffing out of candles, the wilful mislaying of 
card, or stiletto, or patterns, or the mysterious 
misplacing of the bees-wax on Mrs. Hopley's 
chair to the detriment of her black gown. 
And to them every hohday was a carnival. 



ON THE WAY TO THE POST. 109 

She, differing in birth, in temperament, and in 

training, had no such outlets for her 

emotions. Her nature and her conscience 

restrained her. She could simply endure in 

silence, and the strength to do it she found 

under the black cover of the old book. The 

others had ceased to jeer at her as a 

"Methody" and "a milksop," since she never 

obtruded her opinions unsought, and Lucinda 

Holmes had in fact become her champion ; 

but that was needless, Muriel was not weak, 

she was only non-combative. 

They had all gone to church in the morn- 
ing in their Sunday best, for the rain had 
ceased the previous evening and the sun 
shone gloriously, even lighting up the bare 
attic where Muriel lay. True, Mrs. Hopley's 
youngest, a child some five or six years old, 
who had a grateful remembrance of one who, 
when she bumped her head in falling down- 
stairs, 

" Ran to catch her as she fell, 
And kissed the place to make it well," 

and who had helped to nurse her through 



no FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. 

one or two childish ailments, with so much 
patience and loving sympathy, and who told 
such pretty tales when she was getting 
better ; this little one came to her bedside 
and prettily enough offered to "come and 
stay with you, instead of going to church, if 
mother will let me. Miss D'Anyer. Til tell 
her how bad your foot is." But the Uttle 
one never came back upstairs, so Muriel 
knew Mrs. .Hopley had been less gracious 
than the little one, or had had a different 
sense of duty. 

Lucinda Holmes brought up Muriel's 
dinner to the attic and reported, " There was 
as much bother over my bringing up this 
bit of cold meat to you, as if it was a crime 
for you to lie in bed for a day, ill or well. 
Thank goodness ! I shall be soon out of the 
skinny old beldame's reach ! I wish you 
were." 

"And so do I, Lucinda, but what can't be 
cured must be endured, and * grumbling never 
lightened a pillow,' so my mother used to 
say. It it not very pleasant to lie here in 



ON THE WAY TO THR POST, iii 

pain, alone, but I have so much reason to be 
thankful that I was not killed outright, that 
I may well be content that bad is not worse '^ 

"Well, Muriel, as you seem so content, 
perhaps you won't mind if you are left 
by yourself this afternoon. I had promised 
to go to Shotwick for a walk, you know Mrs. 
Hopley's old apprentice Phoebe Home is 
married and lives there, but if you think you 
would feel lonely, I don't mind remaining 
with you." Lucinda had her pretty gipsy- 
hat half on as she spoke, and her eyes turned 
from the shabby looking-glass to tlie outer 
sunshine, and Muriel had not the heart to 
keep her back. 

" Nay, nay, that would never do. It is 
quite bad enough for one of us to be shut up 
here. There is no reason why you should 
be punished for my disaster. Go and enjoy 
the sunshine whilst you can ; there is a hard 
week's work before us. Thank you for the 
offer all the same." 

"It was very kind of Lucinda," she 
murmured to herself when the other was 



112 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. 

gone, "but I saw she was longing to be 
off, and no wonder. It would have been 
thoughtless to expect her to stay moping 
in this dull room. And perhaps little 
Missy will come during the afternoon." 

But neither little Missy nor anyone else 
came near her, not even to bring her tea. 

"If she wants tea she must come down 
for it," Mrs. Hopley had said, and so Muriel 
went without. The sunshine had gone with 
the hours, dusk crept on, the stars came 
out, she was alone with her pain, and 
her inner questionings of right and wrong. 
She had lain there that day more troubled 
about her lost letter, and her lost friend, 
than about her swollen ankle, or her own 
isolation. 

It was a long letter, filling the square 
sheet in every inner fold. She had given 
the whole morning to its production ; it 
contained many messages to Milly Har- 
greaves as well as others, and she knew 
her mother would expect it. She could not 
count on such another opportunity to write 



ON THE WAY TO THE POST. 113 

home; she feared her mother would be 
anxious. And she could not hope again 
to meet Lieutenant Wynne as a friend ; she 
had herself closed the door against him. 
She was convinced she had done right, 
but the conviction somehow did not bring 
the consolation with it she might have 
expected; her friends at hand were so 
few. 

At times she would check her murmurs 
with a gleam of thankfulness for her escape, 
and that again brought back the. chivalry of 
Arthur Wynne ; and she found herself com- 
paring him with the King Arthur, Sir John 
Mallory had drawn. And so the day had 
gone by with its alternations of light and 
shade, until the book she had dipped into 
from time to time had refreshed and tran- 
quilized her spirit, as the bed had rested her 
limb. Lucinda brought home a sprig of 
hawthorn and a bunch of daffodils, and they 
brought sweetness and beauty with them — 
and a sort of promise. 

VOL. II. I 



CHAPTER YL 



IN CONTRAST. 




[PORTING squires in the last century- 
were not desirable society in the 
■withdrawing-room, either at the close of 
a (lay's hunt, or a race-meeting; and those 
gucHts of Sir Madoc who had braved the rain 
for the sake of the last day's race, having 
on(*. or two considerable winners amongst 
their number, and no heavy losers, rode back 
to the Plas in most hilarious mood, to which 
a stoppage at Wrexham to " bait " no doubt 
contributed. 

They rode into the courtyard of the Plas, 
ripe for fun or mischief; and the return of 
Lieutenant Wynne, about an hour later, was 
tl)e signal for uproarious merriment. He 
was plied with questions about the " maiden 
all forlorn ; " " Dorothy Draggletail " was 



IN CONTBAST, 115 

sung out in full chorus, and " The pretty- 
gipsy maid " was toasted at table and jested 
about afterwards, in such wise that had 
Lieutenant Wynne been of his sire's tem- 
perament he would have had more than one 
duel on his hands before morning. But 
something of his mother's languor had 
tempered his father's fiery spirit in liim. 
And he had never forgotten the innocent 
horror of a certain little girl when told that 
his father's arm was wounded in a duel. 

That a stain darker than the brand of Cain 
should rest upon the duellist was a d.aring 
assumption, one not in accord with the 
militaiy code of honour, but he was then 
at an impressionable age and the novel 
theory of the unsophisticated child had 
certainly impressed him. Possibly as en- 
forcing the creed of his old tutor, a man of 
tare worth and excellence who was given to 
think for himself. 

At all events Muriel's remark had served 

to restrain him many a time before; it 

served him in good stead then. He left 

I 2 



Ii6 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. 

the convivial and noisy party, with Sir Madoc 
at their head, to their mirth and their wine, 
simply saying that he had a letter of impor- 
tance to answer ; and though someone darted 
after him to draw him back, he did not return. 
In the morning, when all were sober, he begged 
that he might hear no more unseemly jests on 
the subject, at the same time narrating just 
so much of the accident he had witnessed and 
of his interposition to prevent a fatality as 
explained his companionship with the young 
lady, whose name he did not suffer to tran- 
spire. He lost none of his own dignity, and 
he did make some of the rude jesters a little 
ashamed. 

Something of his "absurd civility to a 
bedraggled damsel " reached the ears of Mrs. 
Wynne and of Pauline, but the important 
missive of which he was the bearer, filled 
the mind of the former to the exclusion of 
all minor matters. 

Captain Wynne had obtained his Majority ! 
It was a quietly made announcement, ac- 
companied with regret for the death whicli 



AV coy TB AST, 117 

• 

had led to his own promotion, and also that 
his son had not obtained his step at the same 
time. But of these regrets Mrs. Wynne said 
nothing when communicating the main fact 
to Sir Madoc and Miss Wynne over the break- 
fast-table that Sunday morning. She looked 
as if a new honour had fallen on herself, yet 
at the same time affected an air of easy 
indifference which imposed on no one. 

Her son made no secret of his satisfaction, 
and Sir Madoc grew important. The news- 
papers containing the official gazette were duly 
circulated, and Major Wynne was the topic of 
the hour. Not until the ladies had retired to 
dress for church had Sir Madoc an opportu- 
nity to say in private to his nephew, 

" I say, Arthur, how is it you have not 
stepped into your father's old shoes ? " 

"Perhaps, sir, they were considered too 
large for me to fill," the young man answered 
with a pleasant smile. " but jesting apart, 
I could scarcely expect to take precedence 
of our senior lieutenant ; and there would 
have been good reason for jealousy had 



ii8 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY, 

father and son both been promoted the 
same day; although I believe my father 
expected it ; some promise of the kind 
was made to him last year." 

"Then, I say, I hope you are not dis- 
appointed, look you ? " And out came Sir 
Madoc's snuff-box, to be offered mechanically 
to Arthur, and declined with a bow. 

" Disappointed ! Certainly not. I am 
young enough to wait. It would have been 
an act of injustice to a gallant officer — one 
with a wife and three fine children — liad I 
stepped over his head. I could scarcely 
have worn my honours comfortably in such 
a case. But here come the ladies." 

Horses and carriages were at the door, 
the gentlemen loitering in the great entrance- 
hall hung with the spears and shields and 
bows of bygone Welshmen, when Mrs. 
Wynne (who had been unusually fastidious 
over her toilet) descended the stairs followed 
by one or two others, and the proud form 
of Pauline, as fashionably faultless in her 
attire as her elaborately arrayed aunt. 



IN CONTRAST. 119 

Sir Madoc pressed forward gallantly, and 
led forth his airy and juvenile sister-in-law 
by the tips of her white and jewelled 
fingers, which mittens left revealed; ex- 
pecting Arthur to follow with Pauline. 

He approached her for the purpose, say- 
ing, " I am at your service, Pauline ; " but 
ignoring his graceful bow and extended 
hand, she passed him with a haughty 
inclination of the head ; smiled graciously, 
said, " Sir Jenkyn, may I trouble you ? " 
and placing the tips of her gloved fingers 
in the ready palm of her new esquire, 
left her cousin standing, to bite his lip and 
transfer his courtesy to a Miss Trevanion, 
whom he escorted to her seat beside his 
cousin with recovered composure. 

He might be disconcerted, but only for 
the moment, and he was not particularly 
jealous. A week earlier he might have felt 
and acted difierently under such a slight. 
That day he took the matter very cooLly; 
and the amused smile on his countenance as 
he left the side of the carriage with a bow> 



I20 FOBBIDDEN TO MABBY. 

caused Miss Wynne to bite her lip, at once 
perplexed and displeased. 

He and Sir Jenkyn, and one or two other 
men were mounted, but he did not hurry 
his steed, and he saw the infatuated young 
baronet ride on ahead to be ready at the 
church to assist Miss Wynne to alight without 
any of the jealous fluttering the young 
lady might desire to provoke. 

There were always servants in attendance, 
or ostlers from the inns hanging about to 
take charge of horses during service, so 
many of the congregation came from a dis- 
tance to Wrexham old church ; but when the 
service was over that Sunday morning, one of 
the horsemen of Sir Madoc's party turned the 
head of his beast towards Chester, and left the 
field open to his rival, for that day at least. 

Whenever Sir Madoc was annoyed his snufi*- 
box was most in request, and he uncon- 
sciously half emptied it that morning before 
they reached the Plas. He had almost for- 
gotten his ordinary courtesy to his sister-in-law 
on their stoppage, had not an amazed " Sir 



jy COyTBAST. 121 

Madoc ! " reminded liira ; and no sooner were 
they all out of the carriage, than he drew 
Pauline aside and demanded what she had 
done to drive her cousin away. He had 
observed Sir Jenkyn's assiduous attentions, 
and his daughter's graciousness, and set 
Arthur's unexpected desertion down to a fit of 
jealous spleen. 

Pauline made a like mistake. 

"Oh, my dear sir, let the gallant lieu- 
tenant gallop liis jealousy down. If he 
chooses to turn cavalier to bedraggled 
damsels overnight, I may surely select my 
cavalier in the morning. I have read the 
gentleman a lesson, that is all." 

"Well, well, my dear, but don't make a 
mistake. Arthur has a high spirit, and, look 
you, he won't be trifled with." 

" Nor will / be trifled with ; " and she 
swept away leaving her sire to the solace 
of his brilliant snuff-box. 

He made but an indifferent host that 
Sunday, and Mrs. Wynne, in the newness of 
self-elation and importance, had so much to 



I2i FORBIDDEN TO MARRl\ 

say of " the Major," that she failed to observe 
it, as she had failed to observe the bye-play 
of Miss Pauhne, or the absence of her son. 

"Major Wynne" was not, however, an 
inexhaustible topic for conversation, nor 
her audience illimitable, and when dinner 
was served, she could not but observe 
with dismay that no Arthur was there to 
conduct Miss Wynne to the dining-room, and 
that Sir Jenkyn was accepted as a substitute, 
somewhat too graciously. 

She and Sir Madoc exchanged enquiring 
glances across the long table from time to 
time, but they did not bring back Arthur 
Wynne, or prevent Pauline from smiling on 
the beaming Sir Jenkyn. 

Festivities did not end with the race-week. 
Balls and routs, notably one at Eaton House, 
were to follow. For this Mrs. Wynne was 
in the dilemma of fashionable dames nearer 
our own time, and vowed she had "nothin^r 
to wear." Accompanying this avowal was 
another, that she was "monstrously unlucky 
in offendiiig the queer-looking mantua- 




IN CONTRAST, 123 

maker ! " And since Lady Grosvenor's assur- 
ance that the quaint little body was of a 
verity the unrivalled fashioner of ladies' 
gear, and kept a skilled embroideress on her 
premises, there had been a sharp contest 
between Mrs. Wynne's love of dress and 
her pride, in which the former, being 
backed by personal vanity, came off victor. 

Monday forenoon witnessed the self-abase- 
ment of Mrs. Wynne and the triumph of Mrs. 
Hopley. The Wynne's pony-phaeton stood 
long at the door, whilst the lady employed 
all her arts of apology and persuasion to 
soften the offended wielder of scissors and 
measuring tape, beseeching the little woman, 
with very unwonted humility, to undertake 
a robe for her to wear at Lady Grosvenor's 
ball. 

Had she not adroitly made Lady Gros- 
venor's introduction the lever, it is doubtful 
whether she would have moved Mrs. Hopley 
with all her sueing. That shrewd calculator 
knew it was not politic to offend her noble 
patroness, any more than it was wise to drive 



124 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. 

away a customer who avowed she was 
" willing to pay any price " for her wares ; 
and the monetary consideration had full 
weight. 

Playing with the lady's fears lest she should 
have no befitting dress for the occasion, 
just so long as to keep up her own dignity 
and to pay back her debt of spleen, Mrs. 
Hopley at last consented to oblige Mrs. 
Wynne, yet "solely out of respect to Lady 
Grosvenor's recommendation." 

So much conceded, materials were brought 
forth, and a consultation ensued, in which 
the lady's langour almost disappeared. Ig- 
noring her forty -five years, her matronhood, 
and her constitutional delicacy, the beauty 
of a bygone day rejected all suggestions of 
brocade or taffeta as too old and heavy, 
and would fain have a robe as diaphanous 
and airy as a Parisian belle. A dress styled 
" a curricle and petticoat " was in vogue ; for 
this azure gauze was selected, with satin for 
the under-skirt. The upper-skirt, arranged 
like a sort of classic drapery, crossed on the 



m CONTRAST, 125 

left side, where it was so disposed as to reveal 
the under one, and this upper curricle she 
required bordering with a wreath of satin- 
stitch embroidery in white silk ; a similar 
wreath to encircle the low edge of the narrow 
skirt. 

It was in vain Mrs. Hopley protested there 
was not sufficient time for embroidery and 
making both. She " had so many robes be- 
spoke for the same occasion." Mrs. Wynne's 
diplomacy prevailed, and the embroideress 
was summoned to take instructions. 

As Mrs. Hopley spoke to the show-room 
assistant, "Bid Miss D'Anyer come hither ! " 
Mrs. Wynne started. Surely her ears had 
deceived her! She thought her eyes had 
deceived her also, when, in a few minutes, a 
tall, fragile girl, in a plain dress of striped 
grey and white gingham, came into the 
room, who evidently walked in pain, cUnging 
to the doorpost as she entered ; who, with a 
quick smile irradiating her face, advanced 
with extended hand, apparently misinter- 
preting her summons into the show-room. 



126 FOBBlDDEX TO MARRY, 

" Oh, Mrs. Wynne, this is kind. I thought 
you had forgotten me," she began. 

Mrs. Hopley looked bewildered. What 
previous knowledge had Miss D'Anyer of 
the lady? Mrs. Bancroft's questioning of 
Muriel in Eaton Park, years before, had 
scarcely made on her a momentary impres- 
sion and was not remembered now. 

Mrs. Wynne was disconcerted ; but whilst 
her own locket hung before her eyes on 
Muriel's neck, there was no affecting 
ignorance, no excuse for refusing the 
proffered hand, which she took with 
sufficient courtesy, only to drop it hastily 
as Muriel went on to say, — 

" I suppose Lieutenant Wynne told you of 
my accident. I should certainly have been 
killed but for his bravery." 

Mrs. Wynne froze on the instant. Her 
fashionable eyeglass was raised to her cold 
optics : then they travelled down to the 
limping foot, and upwards to the astonished 
eyes of the young girl, which they fixed 
with an icy stare, causing the blood to 



IN CONTRAST, 127 

rush to Muriel's face with a consciousness 
of the sudden change and of some unknown 
offence. 

"I heard that my son was seen with a 
bedrabbled female he had picked up out 
of the mud — saved from being run over, or 
something," was said, as from a lofty height. 
" And so you were the person. May I ask 
if you had an appointment with my son, 
as he happened to be so conveniently at 

hand ? " 

"Mrs. Wynne!" The tone of surprise 
and pain in which this was ejaculated was 
in itself a denial. Up to MurieVs brow 
surged the crimson tide of injured delicacy. 
"I was on my way to the Post Office, madam, 
wlien the accident occurred. I did not see 
my preserver until I came to myself. I 
believe I fainted." 

" I shall put my own construction on your 
indirect answer to my question. Miss D'Anyer. 
My son himself spoke of an appointment 
he had made. It occurs to me j'ou . are 
presuming on the little service your grand- 



128 FOBBIDDEy TO MARRY. 

mother rendered to us some few years back, 
and throwing yourself in the way of 
Lieutenant Wynne in a manner that is 
neither delicate nor seemly — in your position 
especially. Mrs. Hopley will do well to 
keep a stricter watch over her assistants in 
future. It is not to her credit that they 
should consort with young officers." 

Muriel felt as if she should choke. All 
this was so utterly unjust. 

'*You are under a mistake, Mrs.. Wynne. 
I have neither sought your son, nor 
encouraged him to seek me. I should 
forfeit my own self-respect were I to do 
either." And not another word did she say 
either in self-defence or justification. Mrs. 
Wynne stood revealed before her, all that 
Mr. Holmes and Lucinda had pourtrayed. 
The locket, so long worn in remembrance, 
was henceforth seen on Muriel's neck no 
more. 

Muriel's quiet disclaimer was lost in that of 
Mrs. Hopley, who professed to be shocked, at 
the same time that she sought to uphold the 



AV CONTRAST. 129 

credit of her establishment. In her own 
mind she was not sorry to see the discom- 
posure of the haughty Mrs. Wynne, though 
she knew little what it was all about. 

With a wave of her hand, Mrs. Wynne 
dismissed the subject, and turned to the 
discussion of embroidery as coolly as if the 
young woman standing there — with infinite 
pain, mental and physical — to take her orders 
was simply the mantua-maker's assistant, and 
had never held other relation to her. 

She rode back to the Plas full of her 
discovery, thinking to overwhelm her son 
with it. 

Lieutenant Wynne had again gone to 
Chester, she was told. " Say I desire to sec 
him on his return," were her orders to 
Norris ; and Arthur found her pacing the 
raised terrace which ran along one side of 
the mansion, all eager and impatient to tell 
him that the Miss D'Anyer whose relations 
gave themselves such airs in Delamere was 
nothing but a mantua-maker's apprentice, 
a common embroideress about to work for 

VOL. m K 



130 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. 

her^ and, as such, no associate for the son 
of Major Wynne. 

"I am aware of Miss D'Anyer's position, 
madam," said he with respectful calm, " but 
I consider that she is altogether superior to 
that position, and has excellences I have looked 
for in vain amongst my ordinary acquaint- 
ance." 

It was a surprise to find her son equally 
well informed, and more than a surprise to 
discover that he held Muriel to be "superior 
to her position," and flamed up with indig- 
nation at the bare suggestion that she was 
" laying a snare to entrap him " — was " luring 
him from his allegiance to his cousin/' 

"You are aspersing the character of a 
most noble girl," he cried hastily, "and I 
should be unworthy to rank with gentlemen, 
if I entered no protest against it." 

He defended, n,ot himself, but Muriel : 
maintained that their meeting was fortuitous 
on her part on each occasion, that she had 
only accepted his arm when unable to walk, 
had herself informed him of her apprentice- 



IN CONTRAST. 131 

ship: and he wound up by saying, ^'If 
Pauline had but half Miss D'Anyer's modest 
reserve and delicacy, my so-called ' allegiance 
to my cousin' might have been a fact and not 
a mere fancy of yours." 

" A mere fancy of mine ! Compare Pauline 
Wynne of the Plas, with a mere milliner's 
apprentice ! " and the lady tapped her fan 
irritablv on the stone balustrade of the 
terrace, which overlooked a picturesque 
garden scene. "You must have lost your 
senses over the girl! Surely, Arthur, you 
have not entangled yourself in any way with 
such a plebeian ? " 

For a moment Arthur Wynne pressed his 
lips tightly together : then he answered with 
deliberation : — " I have seen Miss D'Anyer 
but three times since she was a child — a 
child, madam, to whom we were greatly 
indebted. I was providentially at hand to 
rescue the young lady (he emphasized the 
word) from great peril. There can be no 
possibility of * entanglement,' with one so 
pure and so reserved ; and, if I compared her 

K 2 



132 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. 

with Miss Wynne, to the disadvantage of the 
latter, — ^look there ! " 

He had drawn himself up to his full height, 
as he spoke, in feature, manner, and bearing 
the reflex of his handsome father, and now 
he flung his left arm out above the balustrade, 
as if to point his speech. 

The fine afternoon had brought the whole 
party out of the house ; but there^ sauntering 
along a shady walk by the border of the 
lake, might be seen at intervals the fair 
Pauline, evidently weaving snares for the 
"entanglement" of Sir Jenkyn, on whose 
arm she was leaning, whilst she toyed with 
her fan and answered his enamoured glances 
with bewitching smiles, as if no question of 
a cousin's attachment had ever arisen. 

" Pauline has herself dispelled the glamour 
of her own eyes ; so heartless a coquette is 
not the wife for me," he went on, "and I 
must confess, I have seen no woman in our 
circle who reaches the high standard of Miss 
D'Anyer. Until I do, I am likely to remain 
a bachelor.'* 



ii^tA .. . 



IN CONTRAST. 133 

Without another word he turDed awav and 
joined Sir Madoc then reading the Times 
on a stone bench some paces off, dipping 
into the old gentleman's snuff-box as pre- 
liminary to a chat, for which the political 
aspect of affairs and the newspapers Arthur 
had brought from the Post OflSce on Saturday 
furnished material. 

Mrs. Wynne was aghast : all her schemes 
were blown over. Sir Madoc was hale and 
strong; the chance of her husband's suc- 
cession to the baronetcy small indeed, to say 
nothing of the chances of war. As Pauline's 
mother-in law, she had hoped to reign at the 
Plas, where indeed she did spend more of her 
time than Major Wynne might be supposed 
to care for ; but " Celia was delicate, and the 
air among the Welsh mountains so pure, and 
suited her so well, he could not find in 
his heart to keep her in garrison with him." 
At least that was the reason generally as- 
signed for her long periods of absence : 
if it was not the whole reason, it concerned 
no one but himself. 



134 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. 

She had herself a belief, and had impressed 
Sir Madoc that she stayed there in part to 
watch over Pauline, and bind her to Arthur — 
and now he repudiated his cousin. And what 
had he set in her place ? A country manu- 
facturer's daughter, sewing for her living. 
Oh, it was too horrible ! She must write to 
the Major : Arthur must be recalled. But 
she must give no inkling who was Pauline's 
low-born rival — there was no trusting her 
husband's Quixotism. And before another 
day dawned the letter was written, — and 
despatched. Ostensibly it contained her con- 
gratulation of her husband on his promotion. 

Mrs. Hopley had questioned Muriel with 
some asperity ; but the explanation was so 
clear and simple, the repudiation of Mrs. 
Wynne's unfounded suspicions so decisive, 
that it scarcely needed her own first ex- 
perience of Mrs. Wynne to convince her 
of Muriel's truth. And Mrs. Hopley, hard 
and strict where her own interest was con- 
cerned, did not much trouble herself with 
matters beyond. She just advised Muriel 



IN CONTRAST, 135 

to keep out of the lieutenant's way — a 
superfluous piece of advice, considering her 
inability to take a step without pain. She 
moreover, found a liniment and a bandage 
for the injured aukle, and said, "You need 
not come downstairs to meals ; I will send 
them up to you, so that you can rest your 
foot and get on with the embroidery at the 
same time ; for that will have to be done if 
you sit up all night over it." 

Muriel placed a footstool beneath her 
frame as a rest for her foot ; but sitting in 
the one position all that evening, through 
all the next long day and seemingly longer 
night, and far into the Wednesday, with only 
brief intervals for food, or the shifting of the 
gauze on the frame, was not such rest as a 
sprained ankle requires ; and when Muriel 
next went to bed, she was compelled to use 
the ready arm of Lucinda Holmes as a 
crutch. 

There had been some calculation in Mrs. 
Hopley's sudden show of kindliness. "It's 
best to prevent the girl from being wholly 



136 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. ' 

disabled. I could not spare her, at this busy 
season," she had argued with herself. And 
her kindliness was but short-lived. 

The city of Chester contained an overplus 
of old maids, poodles and parrots (of the 
latter many funny anecdotes were told) ; 
and it was the custom amongst the ancient 
spinsters of genteel birth and small independ- 
ence to give periodic tea-parties, where gossip 
was handed round with the cake and tea. 

It so happened that at one of these 
staid tea-parties in Abbey Square, the 
Misses Briscoe heard a bit of gossip which 
set their ancient ears a- tingling, and caused 
them to uplift their skinny hands in horror. 

Miss D'Anyer, the pupil they had trained 
so carefully and so piously, had been seen to 
leave the Theatre Eoyal, and that too in 
the company of a military officer : and the 
same officer had been seen loitering about 
Watergate Street and the Eows more than 
once since. 

The very next morning — on the Tuesday 
that is — the two spinsters laboured up Mrs. 



IN COSTS AST, 137 

Hopley's staircase, bent on " doing their 
duty to the misguided young woman ; " and 
Miss D'Anyer, still more laboriously, descended 
from the work-room to be confronted with 
them, and with Mrs. Hopley, who professed 
like horror of " so sinful a place as a play- 
house," and who saw in the companionship of 
the oflScer a confirmation of Mrs. Wynne's 
accusation. 

"What is this I hear. Miss D'Anyer? 
That you have been seen at the theatre in 
company with a military man ? " she began 
stiffly. " Do you mean to bring a scandal on 
my establishment ? " 

"Have you forgotten the pious and 
decorous training you received from usf 
questioned Miss Briscoe severely, with her 
hands folded across her waist. 

" No, Miss Briscoe, it was Dr. Holmes who 
took his daughter and myself to the play. 
Lieutenant Wynne only came and spoke to 
us as we were leaving," answered Muriel in 
self-defence, but with all the composure of 
truth not doubting credence. 



138 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY, 

Mrs. Hopley, who kept her standing as 
usual, without a thought save for the in- 
quisition which was to clear herself of all 
knowledge of the presumed offence, caught at 
the name. " Then it was Lieutenant Wynne ? 
There was some truth in Mrs. Wynne's 
allegations ! And you dared to deny them ! " 

*'l could not deny seeing him at the 
theatre ; Mrs. Wynne was present, and must 
have, known it. And she must have seen 
that I was with Dr. Holmes, who was not a 
stranger to her. I only denied an appoint- 
ment with the lieutenant, and I still 
deny it." 

" Whoever this Dr. Holmes may be," put 
in Miss Briscoe loftily, " he was unfit to be a 
parent if he could take his own daughter, and 
a young lady who had been trained in 
virtuous and religious principles, into so vile 
and corrupt a place. If I were to enter a 
theatre I should expect the floor to sink, and 
the roof to fall on me and carry me down to 
the bottomless pit, as thirty human souls 
were carried twenty years back, within almost 




/y CONTRAST, 139 

a stone's throw of this spot, and seventy 
more maimed or scarred for life." 

" In Puppet-show Alley," supplied Betty, as 
commentator. 

"Yes! Miss D'Anyer, the people had gone 
on the fifth of November to witness a puppet- 
show, as thoughtlessly as you allowed your- 
self to be taken to a theatre. It was a 
blasphemous show — Dr. Faustus— -and like a 
judgment upon them all, eight-hundred- 
weight of gunpowder stored in a room below 
exploded and sent them headlong to per- 
dition. The city shook as with an earth- 
quake, the eruption was as that of a volcano, 
the fiery shower shot high into the air and 
strewed the roads with wreckage and with 
horrors,, then flames arose, and all the popu- 
lace seemed gathered to extinguish them. 
It was a direful calamity, an unparalleled 
scene of terror and consternation. I and my 
sister amongst the spectators of the dire 
catastrophe could but think of the Cities 
of the Plain, and hope the awful warning 
would not be lost upon the multitude. 



I40 FOBBIDDEN TO MABBY. 

There was mourning in the city for the 
lost. John Wesley, and other pious divines, 
improved the occasion, and for a time 
there was a talk of closing the Play- 
house doors. But a wicked cabal prevailed* 
because, forsooth, centuries had gone by 
since the ancient walls of St. Nicholas had 
echoed prayer or praise, and desecration 
was no new thing. Women have no voice 
in such matters, or we should have entered 
our protest. We could only, in our sphere, 
do what we could to enlighten the minds 
of our scholars, and lead them to shun 
the spot. Yet we find you. Miss D'Anyer, 
one of our most promising pupils, so regard- 
less of your own soul as to " 

Muriel's patience had reached its limit. 
She was in too much pain to listen longer to 
Miss Briscoe's harangue. She interrupted her 
with, " My mother is not regardless of her own 
soul, or of mine ; she is a good woman, and 
a good Christian, yet she and my father took 
me to see a pantomime when I was quite 
a little one. If she were here now she 



IX CONTRAST. 141 

would not disapprove of my going, I am 
certain." 

Miss Briscoe and Miss Betty uplifted their 
hands and eyes. 

"Nor of meeting Lieutenant Wynne, I 
suppose,'' put in Mrs. Hopley sharply. 

" Nor of speaking to Lieutenant Wynne," 
corrected Muriel quietly. 

"You are bold, Miss D'Anyer," almost 
gasped Miss Betty, in dismay at the reply to 
her august sister, who had risen and stood 
trembling with contending astonishment, 
feebleness and irritation, leaning on her 
silver-mounted stick for support. 

" Lieutenant Wynne ! " she ejaculated, " to 
be sure! I remember that was the name of 
the young man who had the impertinence 
and audacity to accost you on the Walls 
during our weekly promenade ! And he is still 
following you about I hear ! Someone should 
acquaint your grandmother. It is little to 
your credit, Miss D'Anyer, to encourage 
such advances. And I consider it my duty 
to warn you against the consequences of 



142 FOBBIDDEN TO MARRY. 

permitting such freedom. It is a reflection 

* 

on the moral training you received from us." 

Muriel looked from one to the other. 
The speech of Mrs. Hopley was sharp, that; 
of Miss Briscoe deliberate and incisive, but 
she had no opportunity to edge in a word. 
At last even her quiet spirit was roused. 

" These are calumnies, and I decline further 
reply," she said, her cheek flushing as she 
spoke. Then turning her back, she limped 
away, leaving them to say their worst, and 
soon was bending over her frame, in anguish 
of mind and body hardly to be borne. 

Whatever Mrs. Ilopley thought she said 
no more on the subject to Muriel, but she 
looked stern, and there was no further com- 
passion for the sprained ankle, at least from 
her. 

However sorry the other girls might be 
they had no leisure for anything but their 
work. Lucinda Holmes, after helping her 
upstairs that night, rubbed the swollen joint, 
and replaced the bandage very cleverly, and 
kindly, before they went to bed. 



IN CONTRAST. 143 

So, too, in the morning, and for many- 
nights and mornings to follow ; for unless 
the chair nearest her own chanced to be 
vacant for a brief space, Muriel could only 
relieve the swollen and painful member by 
lying in bed on the Sabbaths, which as often 
as not meant the surrender of such meals 
as her friend, Lucinda, was not at hand to 
convey to their attic ; for after a frock 
was greased in carrying a dinner upstairs, 
Mrs. Hopley would not suffer her own 
children to wait on Muriel, or they would 
have been willing enough. And surely their 
food was neither so good nor so plentiful 
as to leave a margin for fasting. Butter- 
milk and potatoes was often enough their 
only mid-day meal, and when the buttermilk 
was not stale, Muriel preferred it to the 
coarse beef which, during the summer 
months, was generally tainted, or to the 
cabbage and bacon boiled together, seeing 
that the rustiness of the latter was apt to 
flavour the former. 

At her ' own home, food and cookery had 



144 FOBBIDDEN TO MARRY. 

been of the first order, John D'Anyer's 
fastidious palate having to be catered for, 
and not all her long initiation at the Misses 
Briscoe's had served to reconcile his dauschter 
to unwholesome diet. She cared not how 
plain it might be so that it was fresh, and as 
a matter of choice ate her bread dry to 
avoid the rancid butter served to the ap- 
prentices. 

To say that Muriel never protested, never 
complained, never uttered a moan when her 
foot throbbed and burned with pain, would 
be to place her beyond the pale of humanity . 
but as a rule she bore it bravely — said " com- 
plaining will not cure," and submitted as to 
the inevitable. 

Weeks went by before she could get 
another letter written home and posted ; and 
then she had so much to tell of her meetincr 
with Arthur Wynne, of the accident in which 
her former letter had been lost, and of her 
rescue by him, that she said less of the 
prolonged agony of the sprain than might 
have been expected. For one thing, she 



IN CONTRAST. 145 

lieard Mrs. Hopley say with contempt, " Such 
a fuss over a mere sprain," and she had no 
mind to make her mother uncomfortable over 
what others thought a slight matter. 







VOL. IL 



CHAPTER Vn. 



Muriel's visitors. 




lElS. WYNNE presented herself no more 
at Mrs. Hopley's. 
The airy blue dress was duly finished and 
duly sent home, and Mrs. Wynne accepted 
the sacrifice of the young embroideress 
without a pang of remorse. She had been 
told that the poor girl, who was evidently 
in pain (and who had once ministered to her 
repose), would be compelled to work day and 
night to execute her order, yet she had not 
abated a tittle of her demand. Not a leaf or 
a flower of the elaborate wreath could be 
omitted lest the design should appear defec- 
tive. She was not accustomed to consider 
consequences to others, — and inferiors. Her 
own requirements were paramount. The 
dress was scanned critically through the 



. MURIEra VISITORS. 147 

lady's eye-glass, and declared to be "posi- 
tively faultless;" with an air of languid 
satisfaction. Of aching hands, or eyes, or 
chest, or foot, what thought or cared the 
lady ? The dress was ordered and paid for, 
its production had been Mrs. Hopley's 
concern not hers. She little deemed 
what a robe of Nessus it would prove to 
her. 

Vanity was in the ascendant. Parisian 
fashion declared that women should drape 
themselves classically, not clothe ; and many a 
silly life was sacrificed in the desire to "be 
slim and genteel," even on this side the 
channel. 

Forty-five years had not brought Mrs. 
Wynne wisdom. It was useless for more 
sensible Owen to expostulate. An under 
petticoat was dispensed with when an addi- 
tional one should rather have been worn; 
and in this, the lady only followed a very 
common and silly practice. 

" I tell you, Owen, it is superfluous. You 

might think I was an old woman to be 

L 2 



148 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY, 

coddled. How could the robe cling gracefully 
with so many garments beneath it." 

Owen shook her head behind the lady's 
back most ruefully, and expressively, but she 
had the gift of silence. 

" There ! " said Mrs. Wynne, as she sur- 
veyed herself in the long Venetian glass in 
her dressing-room, when fully attired, "the 
effect is charming. I protest I look almost as 
young and captivating as Pauline. Yet the 
dear girl is not without taste, I am proud to 
say, for I have helped to form it." 

Miss Wynne's taste was certainly better 
than that of her aunt, and though her outer, 
robe of white crape was almost as diaphanous 
as the blue gauze, there was a trifle more of 
sleeve and bodice, less clinging of the skirt, 
and the natural flowers which looped the 
trimmings here and there had kept no one 
awake to grow them. 

Yet of all the dresses at Lady Grosvenor's 
ball Mrs. Wynne's bore off the palm of fashion. 
She was flattered, admired, envied, and 
scandalized. Beaux fluttered around her, dis- 



MURIEL'S VISITORS, 149 

played their ivory teeth, their scented kerchiefs 
and jewelled snuff-boxes and declared she 
eclipsed all the beauties in the room ; and she, 
trifling with her ivory -mounted fan, languished 
sentimentally and beheved them. 

Once or twice she shivered, and her obser- 
vant son gravely suggested that she was too 
thinly clad, and offered to procure a warm 
wrap, but the lady said, " No ! my scarf is 
sufficient," and though the scarf was little 
more than a film, he knew of old it was no 
avail to remonstrate. 

There were caleshes to cover curled and 
powdered and befrizzled head, and fur-lined 
mantles to enfold bare shoulders, during the 
long ride home through the raw morning air. 
But the mischief was done. 

The penalty had to be paid for vanity and 
folly. A cold settled in the fine lady's limbs, 
and kept her prisoner to her couch for 
weary months, during which Pauline and Sir 
Madoc both grew pretty well weary of her, so 
many were her lamentations and her capricious 
fancies. 



ISO FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. 

Owen and Norris had a sorry time of 
it ; and more than once were on the point of 
throwing up their service, she was so difficult 
to satisfy or to manage. 

And, thanks to her own manoeuvre, her son, 
recalled at her suggestion, was no longer by 
her side to administer to her comfort or her 
whims. Yet \^^hen she came to say farewell 
she blamed him for leaving her to suffer alone ; 
and when he was gone could only console 
herself with the reflection, that he was 
" separated from that artful Miss D'Anyer." 

Long before Dr. Wilmslow, summoned 
from Chester, had, after many consultations 
with the local doctor, and with much 
humming and hahing, and much deliberation 
over the gold head of his cane, counselled her 
removal to the baths at Buxton, she had 
learned to contrast the willing service and 
gentle handling of little Muriel in the past 
with that of her own maid or the hired nurse. 
But she was not one whit softened towards 
the Muriel of the present, the Muriel in whom 
her son saw so many hidden charms; and 



MURIEL'S VISITORS. 151 

had she known how that son had haunted 
Watergate Street, and, failing to see Miss 
D'Anyer, had ventured to write to her on his 
recall, her cup of bitterness would have run 
over. 

The woman of fashion, cramped and drawn 
with rheumatism, had no resource within her- 
self. A game at picquet by her bedside, a 
sentimental novel monotonously read out by 
her maid, was all she had to fill her intervals 
of pain. The higher light of rehgion had not 
dawned for her — and Muriel might have been 
envied, not despised, for she had a solace of 
which the other knew nothing. 

She had, besides, the enviable faculty of 
seeing the sunbeam where the other saw 
only the motes; and whilst Mrs. Wynne 
blamed her niece and her attendants as 
" unsympathetic," " inattentive," " awkward," 
Muriel could say, "I should never have 
known how much goodness there was in 
Lucinda, if I had not sprained my foot, or 
how much Mrs. Hopley*s httle ones cared 
for me. They never were so kind to me 



IS2 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. 

before." And I am not certain that she did 
not reflfard her accident with something 
akin to complacence, if not ahogether with 
satisfaction, when she read over the letter 
received from Lieutenant Wynne. 

That letter was brought to Muriel in the 
work-room, with her breakfast, by one of 
Mrs. Hopley's youngsters, who exhibited a 
shilling, and said, " An officer on horseback 
gave it me, to bring the letter safe to you. 
He had a soldier behind him on another 
horse, and he asked me ever so many ques- 
tions about your bad foot, and he did seem 
so sorry." 

Muriel laid the letter down to be read 
when the child was gone, conscious of rising 
colour in her cheeks, and an unusual flutter 
beneath her bodice. Mrs. Wynne's asper- 
sions were fresh in her mind ; could she 
have said aught to call forth this communi- 
cation? With compressed lips she tore it 
open and read, — 

*'My dear Miss D'Anyer, — 

" I trust your goodness will pardon the 



MURIEL'S VISITORS. 153 

liberty I take in addressing you by letter. 
I can only plead in extenuation that I am 
unexpectedly recalled to join my regiment 
in Chatham, and can therefore have no 
other opportunity for expressing my deep- 
felt sorrow for an accident which must 
have caused you much suffering (though I 
thank God you did not lose your life). 1 
could not leave the neighbourhood without 
a syllable of regret or farewell. Indeed, I 
am troubled at going away without seeing 
you again — going away with no assurance 
from yourself either that your pain has 
abated or that you are doing well. Never 
came a recall to duty less opportunely ; 
for I also have to leave my mother seriously 
indisposed. But a soldier has no choice. 
He must obey orders ; and he has no 
abiding-place, nor foreknowledge whether 
his next ' route ' may carry him to scenes 
of peace or war. I however cherish a hope 
that at some future time I may meet with 
you again under more favourable auspices ; 
but should I never have that happiness, 



154 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY, 

allow me to say that the remembrance of 
our brief friendship will be ever with me, 
an ennobling and purifying influence. 

" Before closing this epistle, it is my 
pleasing duty to convey to you the grateful 
thanks of Major Wynne for your kind 
offices in the past, which he has been denied 
the opportunity to tender earlier. It is with 
unspeakable regret that I am thus com- 
pelled to take leave, but believe me, Miss 
D'Anyer, with every sentiment of gratitude 
and esteem, and with heartfelt wishes for 
your recovery and happiness, 

"I remain, 

" Ever your true friend, 
" Arthur Wynne." 

Twice had Muriel read the letter through 
before she remembered her breakfast, 
hungry as she had been ; and yet a third 
time she was conning it, when ascending foot- 
steps warned her to put it away. But she 
could not put away the emotions, the images, 
the reflections, it had aroused from slumber. 
And complex enough they were. She had 




MURIEUS VISITORS, 155 

sacrificed friendship to propriety and duty 
when she dismissed Arthur Wynne at Mrs. 
Hopley's door, and she had met Mrs. 
Wynne's insinuations with a clear conscience 
so far. But deep down in her heart she 
had unwittingly embalmed his looks and 
words; and his kiss was fresh upon her 
hand. She could not dismiss him from her 
thoughts — and she did not try. Not until 
she read his letter had she known that 
there lurked in her breast the contradictory 
hope to meet him again somewhere. And 
now, that hope was echoed by himself. He 
did not shrink from her. His father 
did not, else why that message confided to 
him. He had said farewell, but he had 
said it as a friend^ and a friend he must 
ever be to her, even if they never did 
meet again. It was clear he knew nothing 
of his mother's unkindness, and she was 
glad of it. 

Neither did she know anything of his un- 
satisfactory leave-taking at the Plas, or of 
his parting interview with his mother, or of 



156 FOBBIDDEy TO MARRY. 

the many letters begun and destroyed in 
the attempt to say no more to her than 
circumstances warranted, though the very 
need to say farewell had brought the con- 
viction that to say it as 21, friend only required 
an effort of self-control and self-abnegation 
which put his manhood to the test. 

She did not know how much manly love 
had gone to the composition of a letter 
which might satisfy the demands of friend- 
ship without disturbing her serenity by any 
premature expression of regard. 

Muriel took it simply as she found it ; 
but she pondered every word, noted his re- 
gret and his hope, and altogether the letter 
was a solace to her, and in thinking of it 
and the writer — always as a friend — much 
of her pain was deadened. 

But somehow, as the weeks went by, she 
seemed to grow thinner and more fragile. 
Once or twice she fainted at her work ; a 
window was opened, there was a rush for 
water ; but no sooner had the faintness 
passed than she had to take up her needle 



MURIEL'S VISITORS, 157 

and resume her stitchery, the interruption 
being commented on as " a nuisance " by 
the hard taskmistress ; whereupon Lucinda 
Holmes muttered audibly and with sufficient 
point, " There's many a worse nuisance than 
that in this house." 

Indeed, about that time Miss Holmes let 
her rebellious spirit loose more than once. 
She boldly asserted at table that their " food 
was neither wholesome nor sufficient, and 
that she was thankful she was not going to 
stay there to be killed by inches ! " 

This was towards the end of June, when 
she looked for the coming of her father 
to see her indentures cancelled and to carry 
her away, and was in a rebellious mood 
accordingly. Her only regret was that she 
should leave Muriel behind with no one 
to take her part. She had learned to love 
her, and from her example to think of 
others as well as herself, though she did 
say, "I don't know what you'll do when 
I'm gone. You're so provokingly tame and 
submissive. I wish I could leave you a bit of 



158 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY, 

my spirit, for you'll want it." But she had 
a scheme in her head of which she said 
nothing to anyone except her father when 
he came. 

Very stiffly did Mrs. Hopley decUne to give 
a day's holiday to Miss D'Anyer when Dr. 
Holmes solicited it " on the occasion," although 
she could not well refuse him permission to 
see the young lady, or to examine her foot 
and prescribe for her as a medical man, when 
he had seen her. But she could bridle up 
at the suggestion of " a more generous diet," 
and ask " what he meant by such an insinu- 
ation ? " and " if he thought, when food was 
at famine prices, she could afford to keep Miss 
D'Anyer in idleness whilst she rested her 
foot, forsooth ? " 

Sad and lingering was the parting between 
the two girls, dissimilar as they were, and 
even though the one was regaining her 
freedom, and Muriel felt that she ought to 
rejoice with her ; but she likewise felt that 
she was losing a very genuine friend, and 
Lucinda was sorry to leave her behind. 



'MURIEU8 VISITORS, 159 

" Never mind, Muriel, cheer up," she said, 
as she saw the tears on the other's cheeks, 
"it's always darkest before the dawn, you 
have told me many a time, and something 
may turn up before long to serve the old 
brute out." 

" Hush, Lucinda ! " 

**I sha'n't hush. She is an old brute. I 
daresay she'll crow over you when I'm 
gone, and there's no one to stand up for 
you ; but don't let her crow too soon, that's 
all I And now good-bye. We may see 
each other again some day." 

" I hope so," said Muriel, " here or there,' 
and she pointed upwards. 

Whereupon Lucinda ran off precipitately 
to join her good father at the door be- 
low. 

"I wouldn't gratify the old thing by 
shedding a tear, lest she should say I was 
sorry to leave her, but I could have burst out 
sobbing when Muriel said that, for she looks 
to me more like going to Heaven than to 
a home such as mine," she said to her father. 



i6o FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. 

as they left the house, and he made no reply. 
He had a like opinion. 

Three days only had gone by when another 
visitor came to see Miss D'Anyer — came too 
in Mrs. Hopley's temporary absence, and, 
through the open show-room door, beheld 
Muriel descend the stairs painfully and 
laboriously, grasping the balustrades to 
lower herself from the stair on which she 
was seated to the one below. 

Mrs. Kingsley, for it was she, hurried to 
her assistance, and surely never was good 
woman more shocked at the change since 
she had seen Muriel last. 

" Oh, my dear child," she cried, ** how ill 
you do look ! I would not credit Dr. Holmes 
when he came and asked me to write to your 
relatives about you. And now I have come 
to satisfy myself. I see he did not say any- 
thing more than was true. Come and sit 
down, and tell me how you are, and if you 
have had the rest and nourishment the doctor 
ordered ? " 

" Nothing more than usual, Mrs. Kingsley, 



MURIEL'S VISITORS, i6i 

and I really do feel excessively faint at 

times." 

" Likely, if you have not enough to eat ! " 
burst from her visitor. 

"Well, you see, the pain of my ankle 
takes away my appetite, and I cannot eat 
meat if it is at all tainted, or butter if it is 
rancid, and dry bread chokes me ; so I am 
afraid I do get less than the others, and — 
Mrs. Hopley gets very cross about my being 
so dainty." 

" Dainty, indeed ! Well, Muriel, though 
I did not believe all Mr. Holmes said, I took 
care to bring a basket of things you might 
like. I knew they would not go a-begging 
if you could not eat them. Here are a 
couple ol nice boiled chickens and a bit of 
ham, and some of our own eggs and butter, 
and a small loaf of our own baking, and a 
custard, and a bottle of elderberry wine ; 
but mind, I brought them for you, and not 
for Mrs. Hopley ; so you must get them 
smuggled to your own room. I've put a 
knife and fork, and plate, and cup with them." 

VOL. n. M 



102 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. 

Muriel's eyes grew moist with tears. 
" Oh, Mrs. Kingsley, how good you are ! " 
she said. " It was only this morning I was 
Avishing for some of the Eddisbury bread 
and butter. And for your kindness in 
coming so far to see me, and bringing these 
niceties, I do not know how to thank you 
sufficiently. I shall never forget it." 

Mrs. Kingsley had been fumbling in one 
of her pannier-like pockets for a cork- 
screw, and now she insisted on Muriel trying 
the elderberry wine at once. Proceeding to 
question her, she discovered amongst other 
matters, that Muriel's last letter home was 
unanswered, and that her grandmother did 
not know how much she was overworked, 
nor yet of her increasing debility. 

" You see I quite expected the sprain would 
get better soon, and I said so. Mother would 
have fretted so much if she thought I was 
really ill," was Muriel's explanation. 

*' She shall know before we are many days 
older," said Mrs. Kingsley, as she rose to 
take leave, suspecting that Muriel would be 




MUR1EU8 VISITORS, 163 

blamed if she stayed too long. " And here, 
ni carry the basket up this flight of stairs for 
you," and she suited the action to the word. 

" Pray don't say anything that shall alarm 
my mother, whatever you do, Mrs. Kingsley," 
cried MurieL " I daresay I should be better 
if my ankle would but let me go out." 

" Oh ! Ill not say a word more than I 
should say," answered Mrs. Kingsley, as she 
gave the girl a motherly kiss, and watched 
her crawl upstairs on her hands and knees — 
too feeble to do otherwise, even had she not 
had a lame foot. The basket, placed midway 
by Mrs. Kingsley, was with difficulty lifted 
from step to step as she went higher. 

In Watergate Kow Mrs. Kingsley encoun- 
tered Mrs. Hopley coming out of God's 
Providence House with Mrs. Peover. She 
had a hot temper of her own, had Mrs. 
Kingsley, and she made Mrs. Hopley feel it 
before they parted. 

" I've been to see one of God's lambs that 
has been committed to your care," she began. 
" How shall you answer to Him for the trust 

M 2 



1 64 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. 

you have abused ? You a mother ! and starve 
and work other people's children to death 
for your gain ! There's Miss Holmes brought 
home all skin and bone, and as for that 
poor Muriel ! Oh, it made my heart ache 
to see her ! You needn't speak ; I've seen 
for myself, and seeing's believing. But never 
another stitch do you set for me, and never 
another hare or haunch comes from Eddis- 
bury for your eating, Mrs. Hopley, you may 
take my word for it ! " 

And without hearing a word in reply, 
she stalked on, having talked herself into a 
fume that hot day. Certainly, neither time, 
nor words, nor sentiment were wasted in 
the letter she dispatched to Mrs. Bancroft 
before sitting down to her own comfortable 
dinner at the Blue Posts. It ran thus : — 

" Dex\r Friend, — 

" If you want to see your grand- 
child Muriel alive, you must lose no time. 
Between a sprained ankle, starvation, and 
slavery, she has hardly strength to crawl 
up and down stairs on hands and knees. 



MURIELS VISITORS, 165 

Who's most to blame Fd be loth to say. 
Some folk have hearts as hard as the nether 
millstone. There's always a spare room at 
Eddisbury. 

" Yours to command, 

"M. KiNGSLEY." 

" There ! " said she, as she handed it to 
the good-natured forester, who had borne 
Ler company, for him to fold and seal with 
one of the great gold seals pendant from 
the watch in his fob. " There ! It's no use 
beating about the bush with Sarah Bancroft. 
If she's hard enough to leave the poor lass 
with strangers, and never come even at Fair 
time to see how they used her, it would be 
waste of good ink to mince matters with 
soft words. I could never make out why a 
rich woman like her should set her grand- 
child to mantua-making. It's my belief 
that sly Sam's at the bottom of it. And 
now be off with the letter. It's lucky the 
post-boy goes this afternoon. I suppose you 
know that Fost-oflSce Yard is just outside 
the Eastgate. Muriel told me it was about 



1 66 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. 

there she was knocked down and hurt, and, 
strange to say, it was that captain's son, Mr. 
Arthur Wynne, who picked her up and 
saved her from being run over ! How things 
do come round, to be sure ! " 

" Aye, aye," said the forester, as he 
stood in the doorway, letter in hand. " One 
never does a good deed purely for God's 
sake but God brings it round to us some day 
or other ; " and he was off on his good errand. 

Lucinda Holmes had set the wheel in 
motion. 

She had induced her father, whose horse 
had carried double in taking her home, to 
stop at the Forest House by the way, and 
the story of overwork and underfeeding, and 
Muriel's condition, lost nothing by her telling. 

Mrs. Kingsley was a woman of action, and 
her natural kindliness needed no prompt- 
ing ; she was soon on the alert as we have 
seen, but she was mistaken in one of her 
premises. Sam had no hand in placing 
Muriel with either the Misses Briscoe or 
Mrs. Hopley. Indeed, he had remonstrated 



MUBIEV8 VISITORS, 167 

with his mother on what he called " waste 
of good money." She had acted solely out 
of mistaken kindness to the girl ; it may 
be too credulously taking upon trust the 
eulogiums of proud parents displaying the 
accomplishments of their daughters in the 
one case ; in the other relying too much on 
Lady Grosvenor's patronage of her whilom 
faithful dependant, and her own business 
knowledge of respectability and punctuality 
through a lapse of years, to say nothing of 
Mrs. Hopley's own adroit plea of motherhood. 
Briscoes and Hopleys stood well in the eyes 
of the community; how was she in her 
flying visits to look farther. 

Sam, however, had a hand in holding his 
mother back from Chester. Since he had 
brought his wife home to Manchester, he 
had sedulously schemed to keep his mother 
from Eddisbury and Waverham. If she had 
taken her journey vid Frodsham he would 
not have cared; but she would travel on 
horseback as of old, and he knew a stoppage 
at the Forest House, and a visit to Waverham 



i68 FORBWDEX TO MABBY. 

were inevitable, and every year made that 
more risky. 

He had maintained with much truth and 
apparent sincerity, that it was time she 
had more rest ; the journey was too long 
for a woman of her years ; that she had 
so well trained him, the business would not 
suffer in his hands, and that he could call 
on Muriel and carry messages on either side. 
She was willing to agree with him, in part, 
was gratified by his fiHal care for her ease 
and praised him for it, still the old furrier 
had no mind to be superseded, but it so 
happened unaccountably that twice over 
she was required at home at the very time 
she should have started, and Sam went to 
Eddisbury and Chester without her, taking 
Lydia in her stead, whom he left at 
Waverham on his way; a convenient 
arrangement in which Mrs. Bancroft at last 
acquiesced, seeing only a good son's care 
for his old mother, a good husband's 
attention to his wife, and a good daughter's 
desire to visit her old father. 



MUBIEL'8 VISITOES, 169 

And yet there were times when she had 
strange doubts and misgivings concerning 
Sam, and her laudations of her steady-going 
business-like son were less frequent and 
assured. 




;^K 




CHAPTEE Vm. 



MRS. BANCKOFT's BUSINESS. 



[AM had certainly been as good as his 
word and called to see Muriel: had 
taken her letters, messages, money and other 
presents : her own father had choked down 
his pride and condescended to ask for her at 
the dressmaker's, but it was always at so busy 
a time, the show-room was generally crowded, 
there was no chance of privacy — or Mrs. 
Ilopley did not make any — and they carried 
back but vague impressions, which were 
translated into favourable ones. "Very well, 
though looking rather tired, as must needs 
be at Fair time." Neither had seen in 
her fatigue more than that of temporary 
over work, and passing months wrought 
changes. 

At all events, Mrs. Kingsley's letter told 



MES, BANCROFTS BUSINESS, 171 

another tale. Stirred to the depths of her 
nature, the stern woman, in her counting- 
house, set her teeth together to hide her 
agony and remorse. She knew not whether 
Mrs. Kingsley inveighed against herself or 
Mrs. Hopley ; she only felt that she was 
responsible to God and her own daughter 
for the sacrifice of Muriel. 

People were slow to move then, but she 
had said, "Til see to it : " and her prompt in- 
structions were given in the warehouse, the 
workshops, the house, to workpeople, to Sam 
and to Margery ; lads were despatched with 
messages hither and thither ; a valise was 
packed with a change of raiment : and in less 
than two hours Sarah Bancroft was in a 
post-chaise, and with her Milly Hargreaves, 
to be set down at Hyde's Cross, a messenger 
charged to carry the miserable news to Broom 
Street as carefully and gently as was possible. 
Though it is certain the emotional girl, whose 
sobs were audible, was ill-calculated for the 
office, try as bravely as she might to hide and 
subdue her own agitation. 



172 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. 

There was a stoppage at Northwich to 
change horses, a rest for the night with the 
good people at Eddisbury, where Mrs. Ban- 
croft (looking considerably older than when 
we last saw her on the hearth of the Forest 
House) heard all that Mrs. Kingsley had to 
tell, and all that Lucinda Holmes — whom 
she found there — could reveal by way of 
supplement, and Lucinda was not likely to 
paint with dim colours. 

What the self-contained, self-sufficient 
woman suffered in that solitary drive, of 
self-reproach and upbraiding, would never 
be known ; to say nothing of her other 
anxieties. She had prided herself on a 
wondrous stroke of policy in reversing 
Muriel's position of " nurse " and " lackey " 
in her own family, and it had ended in 
depriving the mother of her chief comfort, 
and in making the gentle, too-obliging girl 
a worse drudge to strangers, a bond-slave 
even to the gates of death. She had taken 
upon herself to control events, and was 
learning in the bitterness of her heart that 



MRS, BASCROFTS BUSIXESS. 173 

the Lord's hand was stronger than her own, 
His will was not to be set aside by a human 
will. It was the second check her self-suf- 
ficiency had had, and she bowed beneath it. 
*' Man proposes, God disposes," was impressed 
upon her brain, and there were lines on her 
face when the chaise stopped at Mrs. Hopley's 
door which were not there when she started 
on her journey. 

A small, light vehicle, just a better sort of 
Welsh cart, moved away to let the chaise 
draw to the door, which stood ajar. 

Up the stairs marched Mrs. Bancroft with 
a face rigid as a stone or her own purpose, 
just as Mrs. Hopley was blandly bowing out of 
the show-room Mrs. Parry and her niece Mrs. 
GriflSths, and saying apologetically, " Eeally I 
am very sorry, but we are so very busy, and 
Miss D'Anyer has had so many visitors of late, 
that I cannot permit her to be called from her 
work for any friends not related to her." 

" Won't you ? " struck in Mrs. Bancroft ; 
"then perhaps you will call her down for 
me. But stay ! I'll see about it myself ; 



174 FORBWDES TO MABRT. 

maybe she's not able to come. I shall 
have a reckoning with you, 3Irs. Hopley, 
when / come down. I know all about it." 
And the words came back over her shoulder 
as s!ie trod the stairs with the determination 
to see Muriel as she ira«, without any 
glozing. 

She did see her as she was — in a deep 
swoon, the window open, the tambour-frame 
before her, the needle loose on her work, her 
head on a girl's shoulder, another sprinkling 
water on her face. 

Mrs. Hopley, who had followed close at 
her heels to debar entrance, stood in white 
wrath, as one defeated and detected, and 
shuffled out something of " the overpowering 
heat." 

" Overpowering cruelty ! " retorted Mrs. 
Bancroft grimly, as she took the fainting 
girl in her own arms, and fanned with 
lier handkerchief; but not another word or 
look did she bestow on Mrs. Hopley. At 
length consciousness and speech returning, 
Muriel gasped, — 



MRS. B Ay CROFT 8 BUSINESS. 175 

" Oh, grandmother, I am so thankful you 
are here. Do not leave me." 

" Leave you ! no, my child, not I. You'll 
have to go back home with me," was the 
answer. 

" There will have to be two words to that, 
Mrs. Bancroft," quoth little Mrs. Hopley 
stiffly ; " you can have no claim on my 
apprentice." 

" As many words as you like, Mrs. Hopley ; 
and as for the rest, ril see to that when 
Muriel here has seen her friends. I guess 
one is Mrs. Parry, child, by her Welsh hat 
and cap ; I think the other is your old 
teacher." 

Yes, sure enough, Mrs. Griffiths and Mrs. 
Parry, arrested by Mrs. Bancroft's flying 
speech, were still waiting in the show-room 
when, with a painful effort and the support of 
her grandmother's arm, Muriel reached it. 
But there was barely time for greetings and 
introductions before Mrs. Hopley, having 
reduced the disorganized work-room to order, 
came on the scene. 



176 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY, 

Then there were not merely many words 
but high words between the two women 
whose word was law each in her own domain, 
and pacific Muriel listened trembling as she 
sat between her Welsh friends, with a hand 
clasped in that of Mrs. Griffiths. 

Never had Mrs. Bancroft's affections been 
so wounded, never her trust and confidence 
so outraged, since the unhappy day when 
Muriel's mother went off with John D'Anyer, 
and her indignation was proportionate. 

Never had Mrs. Hopley's citadel been so 
invaded ; never had her authority been so set 
aside. Mrs. Kingsley's insolent attack in the 
open Eow was as nothing to it. She had 
been made a cipher in her own work-room, 
and the furtive exultation on the pale faces 
there had stung her. Not that her con- 
science pricked her overmuch. Had not the 
high price of food compelled the richest in 
the land to economise its consumption ? She 
held that she had a right to make the most 
out of her apprentices, and was prepared 
to maintain it in the face of Mrs. Bancroft's 



MR 8, BANCROFTS BUSINESS. 177 

stern accusations and demand for Muriel's 
release. 

Nay, she took the ground of the injured ; 
asserted, "Muriel has not been worth her 
salt since the race-week. And her foot was 
not injured in my service. If she had not 
gone gadding after a young officer she might 
have been well now." 

Muriel clasped her hands together and 
cried piteously, " Oh, grandmother, that is not 
true ! " 

" It IS true ! His own mother, Mrs. Wynne, 
accused you of it in this very room," retorted 
Mrs. Hopley, with the sharpness of a stab ; 
"and did not Miss Briscoe call me to order 
for allowing you to meet liim at the theatre ? 
and he's been sending letters to you since, 
you can't deny it." 

Muriel flushed and paled. This was 
terrible. Her friends looked confounded. 
Her grandmother turned towards her for 
an explanation. 

" This was all the letter sent to me," said 
Muriel with a weary sigh, dipping into her 

VOL. u. N 



178 rORBWDESf TO MABRT, 

pocket for the housewife in which it was 
encased. "He had providentially saved my 
life. I have not seen him since. Mrs. Wynne 
made a mistake, and so did Miss Briscoe. I 
went to the play with Dr. Holmes, and 
Lncinda." 

Mrs. Hopley's triumph was short-lived. 
She had not expected the production of the 
letter. 

" It is the letter of a gentleman, my lass," 
said her grandmother, after a glance over it. 
" But if he had met thee or written to thee a 
dozen times, that would be no excuse for 
starvation and neglect, or working thee to 
doatli at that tambour-frame instead of teach- 
ing thee thy business. Here, Mrs. GriflSths, 
you mind my lass, whilst I go for Dr. 
Trestbury ; and then III see what a Justice of 
the Peace lias to say about it. Aye, and 
what my Lady Grosvenor thinks of killing 
the girls who trim her gowns." 

And before Mrs. Hopley could remonstrate 
or intercept her the energetic old woman was 
half-way downstairs. 



MRS. BANCROFTS BUSINESS. 179 

It wad Mrs. Hopley's turn to change colour. 
She knew Mrs. Bancroft's resolute spirit, and 
that she had Lady Grosvenor's ear. Were 
she to withdraw her patronage — and she 
might — ^half her connection would follow. 
And a case before a Justice! She would 
lose her respectability. She saw that 
concession was safer than exposure, and 
when Mrs. Bancroft returned • with the 
well-knowni surgeon she was ready to come 
to terms. 

But even then she let the kindly doctor 
bend his long back, his square shoulders and 
grave face over Muriel's swollen foot and 
inflamed ankle, and counsel immediate 
attention, bed, and good nursing before she 
tardily submitted. But there could be no 
cancelling of indentures. She would not 
hear of a money equivalent. Muriel must 
return on her recovery and serve out the last 
year of her term. Mrs. Hopley had a will as 
well as Mrs. Bancroft, and was as keen and 
calculating a business woman if not more 
so. 

N 2 



i8o FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. 

Muriel cared not so long as she was free 
to go home then. Her heart yearned for 
home. 

"My dear," said Mrs. Griffiths, "if the 
doctor thinks you could be safely removed to 
Wrexham, it would be a pleasure to give you 
every care and attention at the farm. And 
the pure air would set you up for the longer 
journey home." 

" Look you, doctor, would not that pe the 
pest for her ? " suggested Mrs. Parry, " and 
she would pe with friends." 

The doctor shook his head. " The young 
lady is no more fit to go to Wrexham than to 
Manchester. This injury has been neglected 
too long. Let your chaise take her to the 
nearest inn^ madam (to Mrs. Bancroft), there 
must be no delay, or amputation may be 
necessary. She must be taken to bed at once. 
And her foot must not be put to the ground. 
Come, you are a light weight. Miss, suppose I 
carry you to the chaise," and the worthy man, 
who remembered his old patient at the Misses 
Briscoe's, bade one of the children hanging 



MRS, BANCROFT'S BUSINESS. i8i 

about the door bring Miss D'Anyer's hat; 
and lifted her like a child. The children she 
was leaving looked ruefully on. 

The Yacht Inn was but a few doors 
away ; the post-boy was told to drive slowly. 
Mrs. Bancroft walked down the street with 
the doctor, Mrs. Parry and Mrs. Griffiths 
also following on foot, the former leading 
her horse. She was her own driver. The 
doctor lifted Muriel from the chaise him- 
self, saw her conveyed upstairs, and then 
hurried away promising to be back imme- 
diately with a cooling lotion and bandages. 
''Then we will see what a tonic and a good 
night's rest will do, with some kitchen-physic 
to back it. We must allay the inflammation 
and bolster up the system before we decide 
on a journey." All of which told how 
serious he considered the case. He was a 
prompt man at any time; but he was more 
so than ordinary, and Mrs. Bancroft saw it 
with renewed anxiety. 

Those were not times for anyone in 
business to throw money away, however well- 



i82 FOBBIDDEN TO MARRY. 

to-do. Many a commercial house that had 
stood its ground in the panic of 1793, had yet 
been shaken to its foundations, and had not 
altogether recovered the shock; and even 
cautious traders like Sarah Bancroft had felt 
a sense of public insecurity, and a need for 
caution in trade, and economy in private, 
never before called for. But had it been 
otherwise, Sarah Bancroft was not the woman 
to throw money away, or to spend recklessly 
that which she had acquired with so much 
care and painstaking. 

It spoke well for her heart that she did 
not calculate the cost of the post-chaise, the 
hire and keep of horses and postillion when 
she undertook her journey in. a hurry ; and 
it said as much for her head, that even in 
her haste and distress she could call Sam's 
attention to the fact tliat it was the fourth 
of July, and that she could reach Chester 
just in the nick of time for the July Fair 
which began on the morrow (the 5th), and 
that she might ^* kill two birds with one 
stone," if he packed up certain goods and 



MBS. BASCBOFT'8 BUSINESS. 183 

sent them after her as quickly as conveyance 
would allow. - 

Sam had looked blank, and:^ rubbed 
his thighs irritably. "What a^out the 
October Fair?" he asked. (That was 
the great fair which they were wont to 
attend. ) 

" Never thee mind. Ill see to that before 
October comes. Do just as I tell thee now.'' 

But long before her solitary drive had 
come to an end, she had (apart from her 
trouble and her remorse concerning Muriel) 
begun to calculate and reflect, and heavier 
than her fears for the cost of her journey 
were her misgivings and doubts of her 
substitute at Eed Bank, and her fears for 
the business left in his sole charge in such 
a hurry. She might be troubling herself 
unnecessarily, but she had not been satisfied 
with Sam of late, she owned to herself. He 
mixed up too much with politics, and with 
the warlike volunteers, who were turning 
Manchester into a huge barracks and parade- 
ground, and though she confessed herself 



i84 FORBIDDEN TO MABRW 



"loyal as most folk, still, business was 
business,, and soldiering was soldiering." 

True, he had brought in a goodly order or 
two for skins to make shakos and saddlecloths, 
but she did not care much for business which 
took him so frequently away from his place 
of business — and his home. And although 
Lydia was close and never said a word in 
his disfavour, she had her suspicions that all 
was not right under his own roof; that he 
kept later hours than in his bachelorhood. 

It was not until the night she brought 
Muriel from school, when she caught Sam 
slinking away from observation among the 
other outpourings of John Shaw's Punch 
House, that she had the shadow of a doubt 
of her well-beloved and much trusted son. 

Had he not stuck close to business and 
remained unmarried so long to please her^ a 
l)lain, steady-going tradesman, on whom she 
had built her hopes of keeping up the old 
name and connexion ; consorting as he did 
with his elders, and not with wild j^oung 
bucks and dandies ; and marrying at last a 



MRS, BANCROFrS BUSIMSS. 185 

plain industrious farmer's daughter, instead of 
a high-flown miss, who would spend money 
faster than he could make it? Sam had 
indeed been a son after her own heart, fond 
of a sly joke now and then, but obedient and 
trustworthy, without a single vice ; she had 
trained him well, and was satisfied with the 
results of her training. If her eyes were 
opened that night, she was ready to accept 
his plausible excuse, though she never quite 
closed them again. 

Little matters that had formerly escaped 
her attention now arrested it, and there 
certainly was something about Sam she could 
not quite understand. Whatever change 
there was had come on since he married, and 
like other mothers-in-law she attributed the 
change to his marriage. 

There had alwa5's been a something about 
Lydia she could never fathom, a sort of shrink- 
ing reserve, a constraint of speech and manner 
as if perpetually on guard over herself. At 
first she set it down as the rustic awe of the 
country- bred young woman, but when time 



i86 FOBBIDDEN TO MARBY. 

brought her no nearer familiarity it became 
a source of perplexity, and she was not fond 
of enigmas. And she did not care to see 
' ^^ggy Blackburn ruling her son's house as 
if she were mistress, and bringing a lout of 
a lad with her as she did when their girl was 
born. She wished that babe had been a lad. 
Still Lydia made Sam a good wife, there 
was no mistake about it, and still less that 
his will was law. She was homely, motherly, 
neat, industrious, kept her house in order 
without a maid, and never went gadding, 
tokens both of thrift and domesticity to be 
commended. But Mrs. Bancroft had an idea 
she kept too closely indoors for one reared 
in the country. The markets were cloSe at 
hand, and no one ever saw Mrs. Sara except 
there, or at church, or in the queer but 
orderly rooms of the old black-and-white house 
in Toad Lane, hard at work of one sort or other. 
Had she not even herself told Sam he ought 
to take his wife out now and then to get the 
fresh air and see his relations, he ought not 
to have married to let her lose her fresh 



MBS. BANCROFT'S BUSD!ESS. 187 

country roses shut up in a box, as if he was 
ashamed of her. He had answered : " Lydia's 
shy of town-folk, she hasn't been used to 
them or their ways," and for a long while 
this had passed muster, Lydia did seem so 
afraid of his relatives, especially her mother- 
in-law. Well, she knew she was hard and 
brusque, and Lydia had not got used to her. 
But when she had dropped in at unexpected, 
far apart, times and seasons, either when 
collecting her rents, or coming from church 
or the D'Anyers, and invariably found her 
alone, and more than once in tears over the 
hose she was knitting, or the babe she was 
nursing, with the place as bright and inviting 
as hands could make it, she began to think 
there might be someone to blame besides 
Lydia ; and to wonder where Sam spent his 
Sundays and his after-business hours. She 
even forgave her for keeping Maggy Black- 
burn about her so long, since her new home 
must be dull after the farm, and Maggy could 
bring her all the news of Waverham, and 
it was this caused her to assent so readily 



i88 FOBBIDDEN TO MARRY. 

to Lydia going with Sam, on the autumn 
journey. Indeed she had more than once 
taken him to task and said there was no 
place for a married man like his own 
hearth. 

True, Sam had always an excuse or a 
reason, and his reason was generally " busi- 
ness," whether he was with John D'Anyer, or 
with his military and volunteer friends, until 
at last she had told him that his '* professed 
diligence in business was somewhat overdone, 
she would like him to keep as close to the 
workshops and the counting-house now he 
was his own master as he had done before, 
there was as much need." 

Thus it was that her absence from Man- 
chester and the furriery, in those critical 
times, was weighted with extra anxiety. 
Her forebodings came on afresh when Mr. 
Prestbury declared Muriel unlikely to leave 
the bed hastily prepared for her, for some 
days, and in need of constant care and atten- 
tion. She began to think she had made a 
miscalculation, and that all her trade pre- 



MBS. BAKCBOFrS BUSINESS, 189 

visions would end in extra cost. She might 
almost as well send back her furs unopened ; 
there would be no leaving Muriel to the care 
of the busy hostess or waiters at fair time ; 
and when the fair was over, the chances of 
trade would be over too. 

She had her misgivings too about the 
business at home left so hurriedly in the care 
of her son and partner. Keen as was Sam at 
a bargain, fond as he was of money, close as 
he had stuck to the workshops and counting- 
house before his marriage, the change which 
had come over him since recurred to her with 
fresh force. 

It added now to the anxiety with which she 
contemplated her coming watch by Muriel's 
side at the inn, instead of driving over to 
Eddisbury at once and leaving her there in 
charge of Mrs. Kingsley and Dr. Holmes 
whilst she came back to buy and sell in 
Chester ; as had been her intention. 

Here was another thing over which she had 
no control, and it worried her. Yet she was 
not the less read)' to own that she had "just 



I90 FORBIDDES TO MABRY, 

come in the nick of time," and accept it as a 
Providential circumstance that the July Fair 
had brought Muriel's two Welsh friends to 
Chester, and to Mrs. Hopley's at the same 
juncture. 

It was a satisfaction to have met them so 
opportunely, and for once in her life she was 
content to have someone at hand to " see to 
it," in her stead, she felt so unstrung. 

The tension upon iron nerves may be too 
great, and hers had been overstrained. She 
did not faint, she had never fainted in her life, 
but when she heard the doctor's decision, she 
sank into a chair within an ace of it. Some- 
one brought her a glass of brandy-and- 
water, someone who saw she had need of a 
fillip. She could not be sure whether it was 
Mrs. Griffiths or Mrs. Parry. 

It was a tacit surrender of her own suf- 
ficiency when she stood aside, or sat down 
and watched strangers perform for Muriel 
those offices she would have felt called upon 
to perform at any cost to herself, had they not 
been present to proffer service. 



MBS, BANCROFT'S BUSINESS, 191 

It was Mrs. Griffiths who assisted Muriel 
to the great four-post bed ; Mrs. Griffiths who 
waited upon Mr. Prestbury when he applied 
his lotion and swathed the tender and 
unsatisfactory member in wet bandages. 

It was likewise the kind friend of her 
girlhood, more matronly but otherwise 
unchanged, who stooped down over Muriel 
— when, pressing her white lips close, she 
winced at his touch — and whispered to her 
words of sustaining power and comfort, in 
the language of the Book which had been 
Muriel's treasury, whence she had drawn her 
patience and her hope, the Book Sarah 
Bancroft had begun to study so late in life. 
The words fell from Mrs. Griffiths' lips like 
the cooling drops from a fountain of sweet 
waters, and did much to soothe Muriel's pain, 
and tranquilize her spirit, disturbed alike by 
the accusation and the altercation about 
herself at Mrs. Hopley's ; and the suggested 
possibility of amputation. 

And when Sarah Bancroft's business cares 
strove audibly with the necessity for nursing 



192 rOUBWDES TO MARRY. 

her debilitated grandcliild, it was Bachel 
Griffiths who relieved her dilemma, by 
arranging for Mrs. Parry to go back to 
Wrexham and her boys without her, 
expressing her own intention to remain 
with her young friend in case Mr. Prestbury 
should apply leeches to the ankle on the 
morrow, as he feared might be necessary, 
and in fact until she was fit for removal to 
Wrexham or elsewhere. She had an impres- 
sion that the hard-featured woman would 
rather irritate than soothe the sick girl, whose 
mind needed rest as well as her body. 

It was Mrs. Parry who, with many a "Look 
you ! " and " Pless my heart ! " revealed that 
the dress Muriel had sat up night and day 
to embroider for Mrs. Wynne (of which 
Lucinda Holmes had given a full account), 
had indirectly been the means of laying Mrs. 
Wynne herself up with rheumatic fever. 

" And it waas serve her right, to dress like 
a young girl, look you ! " 

" Oh, Mrs. Parry, you would not say so," 
expostulated Muriel from her pillow, " if 



MRS, BANCROFT'S BUSINESS, 193 

you knew what rheumatism is. My mother 
suffers from it dreadfully." 

"May pe, put if she threw off her warm 
skirts, and did put on a thin gown, and did 
pare all her arms and her neck at a pall, 
then it would serve her right too, look 

you ! " 

" My mother never did that, I am sure. I 
believe she got wet through one day. I 
never was told liow," answered Muriel 
innocently. But her words sent a shaft of 
pain through her grandmother's breast. 
Was that wetting Ellen's fault or her own? 
Was anyone " served right " in that case ? 
She was glad Muriel knew no more. 

Eest, lotion, bandages, nourishment and 

friendly sympathy did as much for Muriel as 

the doctor's anodyne. She slept long and 

tranquilly. Though leeches were necessary, 

there was no more said of amputation, Muriel 

herself had settled that. The inflammation 

subsided and she remained recumbent by 

Mr. Prestbury's command. She was patient ; 

Eachel Griffiths was all that a kind and gentle 
VOL. n. o 



194 FORBrDDEN TO MARRY. 

nurse should be. And there being no 
interdict on speech, there was much to hear 
and tell on both sides. On Mrs. Griffiths' 
part, of her husband, her boys, and the 
years which might elapse before she and 
the captain met again. But there was no 
whining or complaint in her tone. What- 
ever she might feel, she submitted to the 
absence of her husband as she had done to 
that of her lover, or her father before him, 
as to the inevitable, leaving the future in 
hands Divine. She made no parade of anxiety 
or distress. And in the aftertime Muriel 
remembered this. 

I have said little of the war fever that 
was raging through Europe, and had spread 
its contagion to our own land; but it was 
on that epidemic Mrs. Bancroft had counted 
for trade during the July Fair. The bom-bom 
of the drum and toot-a-toot of the fife were 
heard in every town and village where idlers 
or patriots might be ready for enlistment. 
Volunteer corps were enrolling and arming ; 
Sheffield and Birmingham were noisily and 



MBS. BANCROFTS BUSINESS, 195 

grimily at work on swords and muskets. 
The wheels and looms of Yorkshire and 
Wiltshire were hummin^r and clackincr to 
furnish cloth ; madder and indigo had 
possession of the Lancashire dye-pits ; army 
tailors and saddlers stitched and pressed their 
work in hot haste, for even the women went 
into uniform — at least the loyal ladies who 
presented colours to the various new troops 
wore military coatees over their short bodices. 
And as the volunteers loyally equipped 
themselves, the demand for mink, bearskin, 
and sheepskin for shakos and housings was 
brisk and general. Not alone on Chester, 
but on the Welsh and Irish traders did Sarah 
Bancroft rely. The presence of Mrs. 
Griffiths set her at liberty, and as she had 
calculated, the large bales of skins Sam had 
duly despatched to the Manchester Hall were 
exchanged for piles of flannel or linen, or 
hard cash before the fair was over ; and the 
old dame took credit to herself for the smart 
way in which she had turned her unfore- 
seen journe)'' to account. 

o 2 



196 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. 

She did not forget to thank Mrs. Griffiths 
for the kiud and Christian-like devotion to 
Muriel which had released her to more con- 
genial duties, and so helped to make a 
fortunate hit of a misfortune ; and when 
Mrs. Parry came for her niece on the Satur- 
day, the market-day and the last of the fair, 
the little light cart carried off a load of toy 
drums, trumpets, and swords, gingerbread 
soldiers and sailors gloriously gilt, for the 
boys, and rugs for winter use in the farm, 
which she pressed on their acceptance 
with a mingling of grateful good-will and 
independence. 

And Eachel Griffiths carried away with 
her not only Muriel's grateful thanks for 
true and womanly service in the present, 
but the assurance that her precepts and her 
example in the past had been set up by her 
loving pupil as a lamp to light her on the 
rough path she was treading. And if the 
pair parted with tears, there was a rainbow 
shining through them. 




CHAPTEE IX. 



SEEN AND HEARD. 




HAVE said elsewhere that Muriel had 
been carried away like a leaf on a 
stream, the stream of her grandmother's 
strong wdll. But let it not be supposed 
she w^as passive from the weakness of her 
nature, but from its very strength. Shallow 
waters chafe at every pebble, the deep and 
strong glide on without a ripple on the 
surface. There were unsuspected forces in 
her breast with which she had wrestled 
many a time and oft ; and but for the 
softening influence of Eachel Williams at 
one crisis of her life, they might have over- 
come all her own mother had taught of 
cheerful obedience, and patient endurance. 
She had found life at Mrs. Hopley's hard 
and uncompromising, but she looked hope- 



198 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. 

fully through the vista of years for her 
release, and had picked up some crumbs of 
comfort by the way. She had saved Lucinda 
Holmes from the reckless course Matilda 
Parkes had taken towards destruction ; and 
through all her life Lucinda would bless her 
for it. She had won her way to the hearts 
of Mrs. Hopley's children; dressed rag- 
dolls for the girls, made balls and marble- 
bags for the boys, watched by their sick 
beds through the hours of the night, carried 
them with her into the fields and lanes, and 
told them tales by the way, on Sunday 
afternoons in the slack season. Or she 
had cheered up their dull and crowded attic 
at bed-time with that marvellously sweet 
voice of hers, and they had crowded round 
her eager for " more." She had brightened 
her own life as she sweetened theirs, and she 
had her reward in the love they bore her. 
Young heads of all sizes had peered 
through or over the balustrades as she was 
borne away ; sobbing " good-byes " were 
called to her, and Muriel was sensible she 



SEEX AND HEARD. 199 

had done something more at Mrs. Hopley's 
than make dresses or embroider robes, was 
leaving some little hearts that were sorry for 
her, sorry to lose her, even for a time. 

The fact was, one listener had carried the 
word " amputation " to the others, and the 
horror that Miss D'Anyer's foot was to be 
" cut off " was strong upon them, and not 
to be overcome. They talked of it, cried 
over it, dreamed of it. 

They need not have been afraid. Muriel 
had listened and decided within herself that 
it should not be " cut off* ; " and so she 
told Mr. Prestbury when he at the inn 
a second time adverted to the possible 
necessity for using the knife ; as doctors 
of the time were rather inclined to do. 

" Well, sir," she said emphatically, " if 
I cannot go back to my father and mother 
with all my limbs, I am willing to die. 
They would get over the shock of my death, 
I have been away from them so long; but 
my father would never recover the shock 
of a maimed daughter stumping about the 



200 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. 

house," and a long-drawn sigh came from 
the depths of memory. 

She was right in her conclusions. Her 
cropped head had been an eyesore to her 
father and she knew it. The knowledge 
had been a grief to her. 

The doctor had possibly sounded a false 
alarm partly to bring Mrs. Hopley to reason, 
partly to convince Mrs. Bancroft that imme- 
diate removal was impossible, and it may be 
to emphasize his own skill in curing without 
so desperate a remedy. He had however 
faith in his own resources. And they 
sufficed. 

Indeed so successful had he been that 
though he shook his head and said it was 
'• hazardous " and " premature," he could 
not on the Saturday morning which closed 
the fair deny the feasibility of removing his 
patient to Manchester if done with care, 
easy travelling and short stages. Mrs. Ban- 
croft had not dismissed the post-chaise in 
which she had travelled, when she sent the 
North wich post-boy back with his horses ; 



SEEK AND HEABD, 201 

and she had no difficulty in finding other 
post-horses. (When Arthur Wynne had 
ridden away with his servant behind him it 
was on post-horses to be changed at the next 
posting-station.) 

Muriel was glad to exchange the hot, 
stifling, gloomy double-bedded room at the 
Yacht, with its heavy hangings and small 
transom^ window, for a seat in the post- 
chaise, though her foot had to be stretched 
out on the seat before her. And she was glad 
to see four or five of the young Hopleys 
on the watch for her, boys and girls from 
fourteen to six, and to exchange good-byes 
and nod back to them as they waved their 
hands to her. The windows were open, the 
afternoon sun was shining, and she was going 
home. Home ! the word seemed written in 
sunbeams on every beam of every gable in 
the ancient street, on the balustrades of the 
rows as they were left behind. The fresh 
clear air, the blue sky, seemed to be a part 
of her gladness, and but for the chiklren 
there was not a creature she cared to leave 



202 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY, 

behind, not a soul to care for her going. 
She almost forgot her still aching foot in 
her gladness, and leaned back happy but 
not talkative. If the reflection that she 
was bound to return to her task-mistress 
would obtrude, she thrust it into the back- 
ground, and left it behind when they were 
once fairly out of Watergate Street, and 
there was no fear of Mrs. Hopley stopping 
the chaise and demanding her stay there 
and then. 

It was a market as well as a Fair day ; 
the streets were full of people, and the 
recruiting sergeant had taken advantage of 
the opportunity. At the Cross they passed 
a party of soldiers with a file of rustics in 
their charge who had closed their hands on 
the king's shilling, and with gay cockades 
and flying streamers followed the lure of 
the fife and drum. The music disturbed 
the horses, and the postillion had to urge 
them past with whip and spur. Then they 
set ofi* with a rush so sudden that Muriel 
was startled. 




^ SEEX AND HEARD. 203 

Looking out involuntarily through the 
front windows of the chaise, she caught a 
momentary glimpse of a face she knew above 
the parapet of the wide Eastgate ; but before 
she could tell her grandmother that she had 
seen Arthur Wynne, the flying horses had 
carried them beyond the Bars, and along 
Foregate — scattering the people right and 
left — only slackening speed when Chester 
was left behind, and thev were far out on 
the clearer highway beyond Boughton 
milestone, between green hedges, Avhere the 
only streamers were those of the dog-rose 
and the scented honeysuckle. 

*' Are you sure it was Lieutenant Wynne," 
the elder woman asked. 

" Quite. I could not mistake him ; and I 
think those soldiers recruiting at the Cross 
wore the same uniform, only they had tall 
blue caps like mitres with the Prince of 
Wales's feathers worked in front.' 

" Ah, the Welsh Fusiliers ! So they were, 
my lass ! I wish I had seen him, or that we 
had not gone flying past at such headlong- 



204 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. 

speed. The horses had quite run away with 
us, it is well there was no accident. They 
have given my old bones a shaking, and will 
not have done your foot any good. But I am 
more sorry they took fright then, because I 
would have liked to have a word or two 
with the young gentleman." 

''And so," thought Muriel with a sigh, 
" should I. But perhaps it is as well as it is, 
one never knows," and she sighed again 
unconsciously, lapsing into silence, in which 
thought and memory were busy with her 
" true friend, Arthur Wynne." Somehow she 
was not quite so glad that she was hurrying 
away since she had seen him. And she 
wondered how long he had been in Chester, 
and if it was possible he had recognized 
her. 

Her grandmother, too, had sunk into 
silence. It might be she was calculating her 
gains during the fair, or it might be that the 
jolting and rattling of the chaise (the best of 
roads were bad) inclined more to meditation 
than speech. 



SEEN AND HEARD. 205 

Suddenly she broke abruptly on Muriel's 
reverie. 

" Do you mean to say you never heard how 
your mother got her wetting ? " and her voice 
sounded strangely hard and stern. 

Muriel looked wonderingly in her face. 

" Never ! " 

" Then TU tell you ; and let it serve as a 
warning. Your mother was my youngest, 
and my darling, the pride of my widowed 
life, yet — F did it I When she was barely 
sixteen, and I first heard of her clandestine 
marriage through your father's blustering 
demand for his wife, I drenched her with 
the water in which she was washing lace, and 
bade her ' begone.' Wet as she was, without 
another word, he took her away. I never 
saw her again until after you were born, — 
you need not look so petrified, Muriel! If 
that wetting caused her pain in every limb, 
her own secret and undutiful act stung me 
to wrath and brought it on herself." 

And the dry, grinding tone in which this 
was said sounded as if the old woman would 



2o6 . FORBIDDEN TO MARRY, 

be ready to do the same again under like 
provocation. 

" Poor mother ! " murmured Muriel behind 
the hands in which her tearful face was 
hid. 

" Poor mother ! " echoed Mrs. Bancroft, 
angrily, " and what of me ? Was not I the 
poor mother robbed of the child on whom I 
had lavished coin like water. Treacherously 
robbed, in cruel silence and secrecy. It 
came on me like a thunderbolt, and the 
storm fell on both. Was I to blame ? I 
trow not. No child has a right to contract 
marriage without a parent's sanction. What 
do young folk know of character or habits. 
They meet and fall in love — calf love, and if 
no elders intervene marry and make fools of 
themselves. Take care, girl, you make no 
such mistake ; I should never forgive you if 
you did after this caution." 

" There is no fear of that, grandmother ; I 
am not in love yet, and no one is in love with 
me. I will let you know when there is," and 
Muriel's smile chased away her tears. 



SEEN ASD HEARD, 207 

" That's right, child, see you do ! " and the 
wrinkled fingers of the mittened brown hand 
stroked caressingly the thin white one lying 
on the outstretched knee. 

"I have set my face against premature 
marriages," she went on. " The hottest love 
is soonest cold, and those who have neither 
patience nor constancy to wait, will belike 
show little patience or constancy afterwards. 
And the courtship that dare not ask the 
blessing of father or mother, is a something 
to be ashamed and afraid of. Thank God ! I 
had one dutiful child who stuck by his old 
mother, and was not too wise to take her 
advice and wait till he was old and sensible 
enough to take charge of another's life and 
happiness. There Avas nothing secret or 
clandestine about Sam's courtship ; though 
I sometimes think I kept them waiting rather 
longer than was any need. Lydia Avas a 
steady lass, and makes him a notable, thrifty 
wife ; and Sam's lost nothing by his obedi- 
ence, I can tell you. If he only keeps steady 
and sticks to business, he's a made man." 



2oS FOBBIDDEX TO MARRY, 

Some of her recent misgivings about her 
son must have recurred to her, for her brows 
suddenly contracted and she fell into a brown 
study. Muriel herself was so lost in wonder 
at the drift of the conversation and her 
grandmother's unwonted burst of confidence, 
that she had no words for her entangled 
thoughts, in which the riglits and wrongs of 
her mother and grandmother were inex- 
tricably confused. Now and then she 
shifted her position to ease her lame foot, 
and made a casual remark as they passed 
through town or village in their route, but 
the wheels were more voluble than either of 
their tongues. Indeed the rattle and shaking 
of the vehicle made conversation a strain, 
and induced fatigue. 

They had left Tarvin behind but had not 
reached Kelsall, and so were not yet within 
the bounds of Delamere, and the dark green 
woods of the Old Pale of Eddisbury looming 
through the twilight mists high above all 
to promise rest and welcome, were only seen 
in anticipation, when, as abruptly as if there 



SEEN AND SEAS I). 209 

had been no break in her own communin^js 
or their colloquy, Mrs. Bancroft again laid 
her aged hand on Muriel's with kind 
impressiveness, and said : 

"I thought, my lass, you had maybe set 
your fancy on that lieutenant, and it was best 
to give you a bit of a caution; for he's a 
likely lad to catch a girl's fancy, and soldiers 
are here to-day and gone to-morrow, and 



99 



"Oh, grandmother, how could you think 
— ?" interrupted Muriel like a gasp, the 
colour mounting to her pale cheeks unseen 
in the evening shade. 

"Well, well, I hope I had no right to 
think; for Arthur Wynne comes of a proud 
stock, and that mother of his would consider 
his blood defiled if he mated with a trades- 
man's child ; and not all the blood of the 
Masseys, and Stanleys, and the D'Anyer of 
Cressy to boot — of which your father boasts 
so much in his cups, — can do away with the 
fact that he and his father got their living 

and made their money in trade, though it's 
VOL. n. p 



2IO FORBIDDEN TO MARRY, 

little enough your father has made — worse 
luck; so you'd best not let your fancy go 
astray, my lass, that's all." 

Muriel murmured something of his being 
" only a friend," 

"Aye; he may be, as you say, only a 
friend, but friends of his class are best at 
a distance. I'm glad we left him behind." 

Muriel had the clue now to her grand- 
mother's extraordinary tirade — the figure 
seen for a brief moment above the Eastgate. 
A clue had been supplied to something more 
— the unsuspected mystery of her own heart. 
For a moment its pulses seemed to stand 
still, then they went on beating, but to a new 
tune for which she had not yet a name. 
She had discovered that her " true friend, 
Arthur Wynne," was more to her than a 
mere friend ; and the discovery kept her 
silent. She could not tell that to her grand- 
mother. 

Presently her grandmother broke out, as 
abruptly as before, " Hast heard from thi 
cousin Milly of late ? " 



SiJEN AND HEARD. 2 1 1 

"Not since Christmas, when she sent me 
word of the grand doings at the Grange," 
answered Muriel, wondering why she asked. 

"Aye," responded the questioner, "Thy 
Aunt Bent's o'er fond of fooling money away 
in dinners and dances ! And so many poor 
folk starving too ! I've no patience. And 
now that all the world is fighting mad, she 
never has the redcoats out of the house. 
It cost enough for Will's commission and 
uniform ; and now Joe has turned volunteer. 
She might want to get rid of all her sous. 
As if a cotton-spinner's sons had not some- 
thing better before them." 

"Milly said that Bob would soon be out of 
his articles!" put in Muriel to change the 
subject. 

"Aye, and a pretty lawyer he'll make, 
half his time dangling after Milly, and the 
other half hunting or shooting. And what 
had Milly to say about him ? " 

" Oh, only that he danced a minuet with 

her, and a new country- dance called ' Haste 

to the Wedding.' " 

p 2 



212 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. 

" Humph ! Haste to the Wedding, indeed ! 
Lads and lasses are all ready to dance to that 
tune, but most haste, less speed, Muriel. And 
it's not the tune for either Milly or Bob for 
many a year to come. I don't care to put my 
fingers in other folk's hot pies, or I should bid 
James Hargreaves look after Milly." 

"Why, grandmother?" and Muriel opened 
wide her lovely eyes. 

"Why? — ^well, because the lass is always 
poring over rubbishy novels and love-sick 
romances, till she's as silly and sentimental 
as any Amanda or Clarissa she finds in them ; 
and your sister Marion's not a bit the better. 
Ah! you've something to thank your old 
grandmother for, if only keeping you clear 
of such nonsense. I'm glad you are not one 
of the silly girls who fall in love if a fine 
fellow only looks at them. There's plenty 
of time, Muriel, plen — iy of time !" and again 
the old woman patted the young one's hand. 

But the young one answered never a word 
though her heart beat rapidly, and again 
sent its crimson to her brow. 



SEEN AND HEARD. 213 

They were at Eddisbury. The chaise 
stopped, Ughts flashed to and fro, and m 
the hearty greeting of the forester and his 
wife Muriel's unwonted and rapidly fading 
bloom escaped notice. 

They were in the great hall, still in tlie 
bustle of reception ; Mrs. Bancroft help- 
ing Mr. Kingsley to place Muriel for rest 
and ease, among cushions on the oaken settle 
to which he had borne her, hke a child, in 
his brawny arms. 

" Mrs. Kingsley, do you want me ? " was 
shouted from one of the side passages. 

Mrs. Bancroft pricked up her ears. 
" Goodness ! That was our Sam's voice ! " 

" No I no ! " cried Mrs. Kingsley, hurry- 
ing down the passage on the left to keep 
someone back. 

"Your Sam? Why, we have not seen 
him for months," said the forester. "It's 
only a poor, neglected lad my wife's taken 
pity on." 

"I could have sworn it was our Sam," 
replied the old furrier, but she did not ask 



214 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. 

to see the lad ; and though she gave Muriel 
Sunday's rest and Monday's at Eddisbury, 
whilst she made her purchases of skins from 
the forester, and drove to Waverham to 
collect her rents and inspect her property, 
she went back to Eed Bank without seeing 
him. Sarah Bancroft thought she had 
made a discovery of Muriel's secret; she 
little thought how close she had been to the 
discovery of a greater one, the dread of 
which made two people in Manchester quake 
in their shoes ; and put the good-natured 
Kingsleys in a quandary. 

A figure seen on a city wall — an empty 
voice in a dim passage ! 

There was of course a brief stoppage at 
Northwich, where horses and post-boy had 
to be exchanged, but the stoppage was at 
the door of Dr. Holmes and not at the door 
of the inn ; and there the exchange had to be 
made, for so Sarah Bancroft willed, and she 
was too old and too regular a customer to 
be offended. People who put up at an inn 
once or twice a year in those untravelled days 



SEEX AXD HEARD. 215 

were known and respected. Host and hostess 
attended to the wants and comforts of their 
customers, the inn-servants kept their places 
until they were as well known as the swinging 
sign, and as attentive as master or mistress. 
But the homeliness and home- welcome of the 
old country posting-house is a thing of the far 
past ; have been lost in the whiz and fizz of 
steam. Eailways are not unmitigated blessings. 

At the doctor's there was rest, and a 
luncheon of bread and cheese, gooseberry- 
pie, and home-brewed ale, though the doctor 
was out. Lucinda and her mother were at 
their wits' end to entertain their impromptu 
guests as they wished, and were quite in a 
flurry of regret that they had no better fare 
to set before them. " As if it matters," 
said Muriel, " when the hearty welcome is 
here : and it is for us to apologise for taking 
you by storm, but I thought you would not 
mind it, and I could not have walked here 
from the inn." 

" Mind it ! Tm delighted ! But now tell 
us how you got away, and all about it." 



2x6 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. 

Lucinda was in a state of great excitement 
and rejoicing at the " triumph over old 
Hopley," though her joy was damped to hear 
that Muriel was bound to return. And she 
was most desirous that they should remain 
until her father came. But he was gone on 
an uncertain errand, and Mrs. Bancroft was 
eager to get home. So, it may be, as a 
substitute for her father, Lucinda introduced 
his assistant Asa Booth, a sober-looking 
3'oung fellow who brought with him the 
flavour of the drugs he was compounding? 
and who seemed glad to escape to his pestle 
and mortar, somewhat as if he felt he had 
been " on view." And Lucinda's whispered 
" What do you think of him ? " to Muriel, 
did seem to bear some such interpreta- 
tion. 

Mrs. Bancroft was fidgetty to be off*. 
The horses were brought round from the 
Unicorn, and Muriel leaning on Lucinda 
limped to the door. A tall thin fellow with 
sharp ferretty eyes was busied putting the 
horses in the chaise. As he raised his 



SEEN AJSJ) HEABD. 

nead from buckling a strap, Muriel had a 
good view of him, and his face seemed 
known to her. 

"Who is that man?" she asked Lucinda, " I 
have either seen him before or someone 
resembling him." 

" Oh, that's one of Maggy Blackburn's 
sons, and his brother's as like him as two 
peas." 

"Ah, that's it! I thought I had seen the 
face somewhere. It was Maggy Blackburn's." 

" Yes," added the other, under her breath, 
as if afraid a whisper would reach his ears. 
" It's a face to remember, and not pleasantly. 
If I were the landlord of the Unicorn, I'd 
have none of him hanging about the stables, 
cleaning harness and conveyances, and 
horsing them. If a linch-pin is loosened or a 
strap cut half-through and blacked over, it 
isn't found out maybe till the people are 
far enough in the forest." 

Well! " and the listener caught her breath. 
Well ! why, don't you know that the high 
road to Chester goes round with a great 



«( 
«( 



2x8 FOBBIDDEN TO MARBY. 

sweep? Long legged fellows like that 
running straight across can be ready to take 
advantage of a break-down, and if one's left 
behind to be sworn to, who's to be sure about 
the other. That's the way Captain Wynne's 
carriage had been served, father says." 

Part of this conversation had been held 
whilst Mrs. Bancroft disputed the man's 
demand for bringing the horses round, and 
Lucinda settled her friend comfortably in the 
chaise. Her closing remark being, "Don't 
you be afraid; you're going the other way, 
and Asa is giving a sharp squint at every- 
thing. He's very clever is Asa." 

Muriel smiled : she had heard of Asa, 
and his cleverness, many a time before. 
Lucinda acknowledged the smile with a 
laughing good-bye, and retreated to make 
way for Mrs. Bancroft. 

There was a fresh start, another set of 
associations to occupy their minds and 
conversation as they left milestones and 
turnpike-gates behind. But th;*ough all, that 
voice heard at the Forest House seemed to 



SEEN AND HEABD. 219 

come back to Sarah Bancroft's ear ; and that 
figure seen above the Eastgate was more 
vividly present to Muriel than her companion 
imagined. 

This time Muriel was taken direct to her 
own home, and the chain across the end of 
Broom Street was removed to allow the 
passage of the chaise. John D'Anyer him- 
self helped his daughter to alight, and lent 
her his support to a seat. He left a kiss on 
her brow, and said he was "glad to have her 
home again," before he resigned her to her 
mother with moist eyes to mingle tears of 
mutual thankfulness and affection. Sisters 
and Betty all came round her with their 
greetings, and Muriel felt once more she was 
" at home." 

John D'Anyer had returned to the chaise, 
more than usually courteous to his mother-in- 
law. He thanked her for her care of Muriel, 
offered to recoup the cost of her journey, and 
begged she would alight there. 

His attention and offers of repayment were 
doubtless gratifying ; her prompt " Til see 



220 FOBBIDDEN TO MARBY. 

thah don't," was said with a smile ; but the old 
woman went on in the vehicle to Hyde's Cross, 
whence it came, and having settled her long 
bill out of her long purse, with as long a 
face, carried her hand-bag over to her son's 
house just as Lydia was clearing away 
her tea-things. Her little girl was playing 
with a kitten on the home-made hearth- 
rug. 

" Where's Sam ? " was the first salutation. 

"Oh, Mrs. Bancroft!" Lydia never said 
mother — "How you made me jump! I 
thought it was Sam coming in. He said I 
had better not wait tea, he might be late 
paying wages as you were away. I'll soon 
have a cup ready for you — and how did you 
leave all the folks at Waverham ? There was 
a curiously anxious expression about Lydia's 
mouth and eyes as she put the question ; but 
her mother-in-law had Ufted the little one 
into her lap to be kissed and treated to gilt- 
gingerbread cakes from those capacious 
pannier-like pockets of hers. 

" Oh, they were all prettj" hearty. The 



SEEN AND HEARD. 221 

war doesn't seem to be a bad thiug for 
the farmers from all I hear. Your father 
looks fat and jolly enough. He sent his love 
to you, and a cheese, and some fruit. The 
hamper's across the road. I thought Sam 
might fetch it." 

*'Sam fetch it?" The ejaculation was 
involuntary, and not to be recalled. 

" Sam fetch it ! " echoed the old woman 
tartly, "Why not? It's an ill ass that 
won't carry its own provender. If John 
D'Anyer's too proud to do a turn of the sort, 
our Sam's not. Not he." 

Lydia had been moving about preparing 
tea for her mother-in-law. There had been 
a wistful look in her face as she asked for 
news from Waverham, but it had settled into 
stoUd impenetrabiUty as she set the tea " to 
draw," and buttered the brown bread for her 
unexpected visitor. 

She was fiUing up the small teapot from 
the kettle on the bright bar, when Mrs. Ban- 
croft said with customary abruptness : 

I got quite a start at Kingsley's, some lad 



a 



222 FOBBlDDEy TO MARRY. 

or other called out to Mrs. Kingsley from 
the passage, and I could almost have sworn 
it was Sam's voice ! " 

Somehow either the tea-pot or the kettle 
slipped, and the boiling water splashing on 
the bright fender sent the kitten squealing 
away from the hearth, and brought an angry 
cat flying into the room in maternal alarm. 
The mischance and the snarl of the cat 
diverted attention from Lydia's ashen face, 
or the strange voice in which she asked, 
"What lad? did you see him?" 

"No! What are you doing? It's well I 
had the child on my lap or you would have 
scalded her instead of the kitten. Poor 
Pussy." 

In the commotion the disturbing voice was 
forgotten, and after tea, which comprehended 
also a coUop of hung beef^ Sarah Bancroft 
relieved Mrs. Sam of her presence. 

When Sam came home about nine o'clock 
in an ill-humour at having been detained to 
go over the accounts with his mother before 
he left Eed Bank, he found a hamper in the 



SEEN AND HEARD, 223 

kitchen and his wife with her head on the 
round snap-table in tears. 

"What's the matter now? " he cried, as 
he threw down his hat. " I suppose it was 
with some of your confounded nonsense you 
scalded the poor kitten, and set my mother 
wondering what made you so starty. And 
now, you're bhibbering as usual." 

" Oh, Sam, I could not help it ! I thought 
your mother had found it all out ; and my 
heart fair came in my mouth ! " 

" Came into your mouth indeed ! I wish 
it had stuck there," quoth her polite husband 
rubbing his breeches knees irritably. You'll 
let it out and spoil all one of these days if 
you're not more careful." 

" Oh, Sam, I can't help it, I can't indeed ! 
Do tell your mother. I don't think she's so 
very hard. And the secret is killing me. It 
is Sam." She had come close to him, and 
dropping on her knees laid her hands and 
head upon his arm appealingly. 

He shook her off with an oath — this ex- 
cellent son — this steady husband — "Do you 



224 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. 

want to bring us to ruin? Do you want 
to be turned out of house and home? K 
you dare to breathe a syllable to a living 
soul, by heaven — ^I'll kill you ! " and taking 
up his hat again he went out of the house. 




CHAPTER X. 



UNKNOWN ATTRACTIONS. 




CTRIEL thought that time had run faster 



'O 



in Manchester than in Chester durinir 



o 



her long absence. Her Hfe had been mono- 
tonous, her growth from girlhood to woman- 
hood wearisome until the last grand leap. 
At home all seemed changed. The chaise 
rattled over paved roadways ; oil-lamps hung 
suspended from the walls or were mounted on 
wooden posts to light the streets when night 
should come ; and those streets, she knew 
them not : whole blocks of old houses had 
vanished, new red-brick ones had sprung up, 
and change was everywhere. 

The whiteness of her father's head was 
nothing new — it had been white at thirty, 
but the hair must have retreated from the 
temples, his lofty brow seemed so much 

VOL. n. Q 



226 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. 

loftier, and certainly there was a round spot 
on the crown from which the hair had fallen 
altogether ; it was but the size of a shilling, 
but it was there — and he not forty. Yet he 
was erect and commanding as of old, and 
Muriel fancied he was more imperative and 
exacting:. She fancied too that she saw a line 
or two of silver under her mother's cap, and 
surely her gentle face was growing thin and 
angular at the cheek-bones like her Grand- 
mother Bancroft, of whose energy she 
certainly partook, though her will was 
dominated by a stronger one, and if she 
rebelled it was kept within herself — never 
shown. She noticed too that whilst her 
father's attire was jaunty and dandyish as 
of vore, her mother's had toned down into 
primitive simplicity. A white kerchief of 
thin muslin in regular folds covered her neck 
with matronly modesty, whilst the plain half- 
high bodice under which lay the kerchief 
corners was not the narrow strip worn by 
fashionables hke Mrs. Wynne, and the material 
was of homely stuff. 




UNKyOWy ATTRACTIOyS. 227 

Yery different were the two stylish young 
ladies who bent over her, and in whom Muriel 
could scarcely realize the Anna and Marion 
who had been so captious over the em- 
broidered portrait then confronting her upon 
the wall ; for black-haired Marion in her six- 
teenth year had shot up taller than light- 
complexioned Anna in her seventeenth ; 
and lovely little Sara was " little " no longer, 
though she still wore a schoolgirl's frock 
and pinafore, from which Marion had only 
been freed on account of her premature 
growth. 

" I can scarcely believe my eyes," slie 
said, " you are all so grown, and cousin Milly 
— and — surely that is not Bob Bent with you, 
Milly?" 

"Yes, cousin Muriel, Tm Bob, come to 

shake hands with you, to show I don't bear 

malice. I daresay I was rough and rude 

when you came from that fine school with 

a cropped head, but as Milly will tell you, I 

don't bear malice. I've forgiven myself long 

ago — so shake hands on it." 

Q 2 



228 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. 

Muriel laughed, asked after her uncle, 
then about hia brothers. 

"Oh, Joe, and Charles, you'll hear their 
martial footsteps in the passage ere long. 
I came in advance lest the warriors should 
cut the limb of the law out. Youll have 
quite an army of cousins to defend you, 
when the French come, won't she, Milly? 
But if they do, my girls, I don't know but 
I might lay down the goose-quill and take 
up a gun myself; I am not a bad shot 
at rabbit or pigeon, and I shouldn't mind 
having a pop at a Mounseer or two, without 
any malice prepense, I assure you." 

He had seen the grave look in Muriel's 
face. " Hush, Bob," said she, " I don't like 
to hear you speak so lightly of human lives." 

" My simple cousin, where have you lived 
all these years? We are all bloodthirsty 
manslayers now, every man jack of us. If 
a man goes to court his sweetheart, he talks 
of swords and pistols instead of love and 
kisses, doesn't he, Milly?" 

'• How should I know ? " answered Milly, 



USKXOWN ATTRACTIONS. 229 

blushing rosy red. Muriel looked from one 
to the other, and fancied she saw a glance 
of intelligence pass between them. It gave 
point to Eobert's frequent references to 
Milly, which she had at first taken as a 
bit of his badinage. 

She soon found that his jests had matter 
in them. Of the many cousins who walked 
in and out so frequently, two held his 
Majesty's commission, and more were 
volunteers. Even her father coming in from 
the warehouse, or the exchange, or from his 
club at John Shaw's (which still existed 
under John Shaw's law though the ex- 
dragoon had succumbed to a stronger law 
than his own, and lay under a coffin-lid), 
or from the neighbouring Seven Stars where 
country carriers and buyers put up, talked 
more of French politics and war news than 
of the prices of goods, unless to decry the 
war as ruinous to trade and credit. And 
indeed the closing of French ports against 
our goods, and the interference with American 
trade, had made French policy a vital question 



230 FORBIDDEN TO MAURY, 

with our manufacturers ; and that something 
new within Muriel's own breast made all the 
warlike preparations, of which she heard so 
much, of vital import to her. 

The letter she had sent home with so much 
difficulty had accounted for her accident and 
her rescue ; and now she found two sisters 
and cousin Milly alike eager to ply her with 
feminine questions about the gallant young 
officer, what he was like, what he said when 
she saw him; did he not call to see her? 
intermingled with others on that first meeting 
in Delamere Forest when they were all 
children, and comments on his romantic 
reappearance, which showed that they had 
indulged in a class of sentimental reading 
from which she had happily been excluded. 

So long as Anna and Marion confined 
their observations to the bravery of Arthur 
Wynne, and his providential appearance at 
a critical juncture, she was willing to assent ; 
but no sooner did they branch off into the 
probabilities of a mutual attachment, which 
she slyly kept to herself, then she felt it time 



Uy KNOWN ATTRACTIONS. 231 

to check their assumptions, the knowledge of 
all that was in her own heart making it 
the more imperative. Maidenly shame pro- 
hibited the confession of a love unsought ; a 
love she dared scarcely avow to herself. 

She still lay on the sofa, far from strong, 
and unable to use her foot. 

" Hush, my dears ! What would mother 
think if she heard you? What would 
Lieutenant Wynne think? Encourage him 
to call at Mrs. Hopley's ! You forget that it 
was not my father's house, and that I was 
there only a mantua-maker's apprentice and 
he the nephew of a baronet." 

" I hope you did not tell him so," cried 
black-headed Marion, in whom all the father's 
pride seemed to have centred. 

" Indeed I did. It was my duty to do so." 

"Indeed it was not. If Grandmother 
Bancroft chose to disgrace us all with 
binding you to that woman, there was no 
reason to publish to strangers that John 
D'Anyer's daughter was stitching dresses 
amongst common workwomen." And hand- 



232 rOBBlDBEy TO MARBT. 

some Marion drew her tall form up proudly, 
and resentfully, as if she had felt Muriel's 
avocation a disgrace. 

Anna held her peace. She had her own 
reasons; she had friends who were not 
aristocratic, and of whom the family knew 
nothing ; at least nothing more than in 
relation to their work, for they were fustian- 
cutters ; for whose frame and knives, John 
D'Anyer himself found frequent occupation. 

Muriel flushed. She had long felt her 
bondage a double grievance, unable to 
penetrate her grandmother's motives, or 
her father's acquiescence ; but she was not 
a grumbler. Her mother had early im- 
pressed upon her that she was required to 
" do her duty in that state of life unto which 
it pleased God to call her." Miss Williams 
had enforced and exemplified the doctrine, 
and she had been a faithful disciple. But 
to say that she had been satisfied with her 
position would be untrue. Marion's remark! 
brought her face to face with the subject 
once more, and riot pleasantly. 



UNKNOWN ATTRACTIONS. 233 

Presently she answered : " If you tliink 
it such a disgrace, there was all the more 
reason Lieutenant Wynne should be in- 
formed. But you cast a reflection on 
father when you say so, for I could not 
have been apprenticed without his consent," 
and her head went back wearily on the 
sofa cushion. 

"Well, for ray part, I don't see the 
disgrace," here interposed Anna, who was 
often to be found in the warehouse, helping 
the " putter-out," and, it may be for that 
reason, her father's favourite. "There's no 
disgrace in honest work. I think the 
weaver's as good as his master, and I don't 
think that lieutenant a bit better for bein^j: 
a baronet's nephew. What good has father's 
family pride done us ? " 

Marion, quite eighteen months her junior, 
put up her hands, long and slender in accord 
with her figure. " Oh, you revolutionist ! 
Where did you pick up such notions ? You 
had better not let father hear you ! " 

Ellen D'Anyer walked into the room. 



234 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY, 

The excited flush on Muriers face caught 
her eye. She smoothed down the brown 
hair, once more abundant, and saying, 
"Come, girls, leave Muriel alone. You are 
neglecting your own work and disturbing 
her ; " sent them before her, the one to help 
the maid upstairs, the other to assist her 
with cookery in the kitchen. 

"Motlier," said Muriel from the sofa, 
" there is no reason why my hands should 
be idle because my foot requires rest. I am 
quite well enojugh now to use my needle. 
Bring your work-bag and let me darn the 
stockings. I can fancy it is lace. Let me 
do something to help you. It is so long 
since I did, and I think you need rest 
more than I." 

In truth she did. She was worn with 
many anxieties, with sleepless nights, and 
careful days. John D'Anyer had felt the 
commercial pressure, but the closer he was 
pressed, the more difficult it was to meet 
his payments to the hour, the more lavish 
was his expenditure abroad. It was his 




UNKNOWN ATTRACTIONS. 235 

expedient to preserve his credit. His wife 
saw this with pain ; expostulation, she knew 
of old, was worse than useless. Interference 
only drove him to excess. His own father 
had remonstrated, but the old and now feeble 
man had only incensed his son, and there 
was a coolness set up which told against 
John in the long run. All Ellen could do 
was to economise in the household. She 
dismissed one maid, retaining only Betty, 
and had told Sara to make the most of 
school, for she would soon have to leave it. 
Her days and nights were full of apprehen- 
sions, whether her husband was away on a 
journey or at home ; in the former case she 
went into the warehouse from time to time 
to keep an eye on clerks and salesmen, and 
altogether she had her hands full, though 
she set her girls to work betimes, as was the 
custom of the time, amongst people of 
their class. Muriel had almost ceased to be 
one of them ; she had come home at last 
only for a temporary rest. The homely offer 
to " darn the stockings to help her,*' restored 



236 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. 

the balance, and set Muriel in her old place. 
Always ready to help where help was needed. 
The mother would be sorry when Muriel had 
to go back again. 

There was, however, plenty of life and 
laughter in the house, for the cares of the 
nation, or of their elders, seldom press 
heavily on young people; and, whether it 
was the attraction of MurieFs narrow escape, 
or of her soft brown eyes and melodious 
voice, the " army of cousins " were not slow 
in following the footsteps of Milly Hargreaves 
and Bob Bent, and when the sons and 
daughters of John D'Anyer's many married 
sisters and brothers were gathered together 
in that parlour in Broom Street to sing and 
chat and try the mettle of the old harpsi- 
chord, they made a nice little family party. 
" Not finer men or women to be found in 
England, sir," was John D'Anyer's boast, 
a sentiment which had many an echo. 

It was change and refreshment for Muriel, 
and though there was a retarding enemy in her 
l)reast she was doing her best to dislodge, she 



UNKNOWHr ATTRACTIONS. 237 

grew stronger as the days and weeks went 

Tlie shaking journey home had not 
improved her foot and she was long unable 
to use it, but she kept her fingers busy, 
took Sara's education in hand, and her rest 
on the sofa was anything but the rest of 
indolence. And as her fingers flew, her voice 
rose in song, the welling up of a cheerful 
spirit gladdened by freedom and home 
influences. 

She had not been home a fortnight when 
Sara — who had taken Muriel fully into her 
loving young heart — whispered one evening 
in confidence to Joe Bent, at the close of a 
song by Marion — who had a voice of great 
power and compass — " I like Muriel's singing 
better than Marion's, it may not be so full 
nor so fine, but it is — it is — as sweet as a 
bird's, and I like it best." 

" Say you so ; then we'll have a song 
from the bird," he answered, with a good- 
humoured nod ; and after a little pressing, 
the bird in the sofa-nest was warbling an old 



238 FORBIDDEN TO MABRY. 

ditty as simply and unaffectedly as if she had 
been singing to Mrs. Hopley's children, 
instead of to an auditory of cousins, who 
were, or thought themselves, men and 
women. 

"Who's that singing in the parlour?'* 
exclaimed John D'Anyer. He was smoking 
a long pipe in the back sitting-room with 
James Hargreaves and talking over trade 
matters, having a tankard of ale on the table 
between them. His mother-in-law had just 
walked in after business to see how Muriel 
was getting on, and to bring a new specific 
for Ellen's rheumatism. 

" Muriel," answered Mrs. D'Anyer quietly 
from the corner, where she sat out of the 
draught of the open window. 

"Tchut, nonsense! Muriel never had a 
musical pipe like that The notes are as clear 
as a bell, and as sweet as — " (he seemed to 
lack a comparison) " aye, as Marion's. It 
can't be Muriel ! " 

Nevertheless he rose from his seat and 
went, pipe in mouth, to the door of the other 



UNKNOWN ATTRACTIONS. 239 

room to satisfy hiraself. He remained to 
listen. 

"Well, art thah satisfied?" cried Mrs. 
Bancroft on his return. 

" Egad ! it is Muriel after all ! I did not 
think the lass had so much music in her." 

" No ! " jerked out Mrs. Bancroft, sharply, 
" thah never didst see anything good in 
Muriel, but wait till she can sit up and touch 
the harpsichord ; though I daresay the poor 
thing is out of practice now. There's more 
in Muriel than thah dreams of, and so I told 
thee years ago. I said I'd see her natural 
gifts were not lost for want of cultivation, 
and mark the result. Don't think those fine 
nephews o' thine in th' next room were drawn 
hither by Anna's pretty face, that thah thinks 
so much of, or by Marion's black eyes and 
raven hair, or even her fine voice, and she's 
a fine lass, I admit. How often did they 
come bethink thee till Muriel came home? 
Once in a month, belike. Other folk have 
keener eyes and ears than thah hast, John ; 
and mayhap thah'll find more beauty in the 



240 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY, 

lass some of these days than is to be found 
in face or figure, and Muriel's none so ill- 
looking, after all. And maybe thah'll 
discover that some day through other folks' 
eyes." 

" Bravo ! old dame, stick up for the lass ! 
My Milly'll back thee!" cried James Har- 
g reaves, knocking the ashes from his pipe, by 
way of emphasis. 

John D'Anyer had already discovered that 
"Muriel was not so ill-looking after all," but 
he had failed to see the attractions others 
found in her, and was not disposed to set 
her before his queenly Marion, or his fair- 
haired, favourite Anna, or even the child-like 
loveliness of Sara. She was a comelv maiden, 
he admitted, but that was all. And he argued 
that when the newness of her presence wore 
off, the visitors would drop off too — unless 
there were other attractions. 

Muriel had wondered to see so many of 
their relatives and others dropping in at 
unexpected times and seasons, meeting in 
groups that filled the parlour twice or 



UNKNOWN ATTRACTIONS. 241 

r 

thrice a week; that old familiar parlour 
where the dark mahogany chairs and tables 
shone like glass with much rubbing, and the 
bright brass fender mocked the mirror with 
its pohsh and where her own embroidery 
adorned the walls, in company with the newly 
painted portraits of father and mother. 
There had been no such gatherings in the 
old times, except at Christmas or Whitsun- 
tide and then by invitation. Perhaps it was 
because her cousins and her sisters were 
now grown up, and she by no means dis- 
paraged the attractions of the latter. Of 
herself as a magnet she had not the feeblest 
perception. So keenly had she been made to 
feel her own lack of beauty, at home and at 
school, that if her looking-glass repeated, 
" You are not so very ill-looking after all," 
she took it apologetically only. She could 
not compare her features with any of her 
sisters, or with Milly Hargreaves; and the 
seam below her under lip was an antidote to 
vanity. Of her symmetrical hands and arms, 
she had quite a delusion, perhaps born in 

VOL. n. R 



242 FORBIDDEN TO MARBY. 

the days when chilblains nipped them. She 
had neither come in contact with pictures or 
statuary to correct her error, and was weak 
enough to be sensitively ashamed of them. 

One day, Lucinda Holmes, watching her 
slender fingers busy at her frame, had 
remarked casually, " What beautiful hands 
you have, Miss D'Anyer ! *' and Muriel had 
with a pang of pain dashed both hands 
behind her out of sight as if to hide their 
ugliness, and the look with which she con- 
fronted astonished Lucinda was strange on 
her face. It said plainly as words, " Do you 
mean to insult me ? " 

She had taken the remark for irony. Since 
then, she had overmastered the painful con- 
sciousness of utter plainness, but she had not 
arrived at the consciousness that her charm 
of expression supplied all that was wanting of 
classic outhne, or peachy skin. 

It was only natural, she thought, that Anna 
and Marion should be admired, and if she 
had not had an interpreter in her own breast, 
her grandmother had furnished the clue to 



UNKNOWN ATTRACTIONS. 243 

the many " accidental " meetings of Robert 
Bent and Milly Hargreaves in their pleasant 
parlour. It did not take her long to 
penetrate their secret, although they kept it 
well concealed under their cousinship — or 
fancied they did. 

A warning glance had told Milly that she 
was suspected, and the very next day saw her 
by Muriel's side entreating secrecy. 

"Bob is so incautious, Muriel! He says 
he cannot help it, he is so passionately fond 
of me; and he is urging me to let him put 
up the banns ; and oh, Muriel, I don't know 
what to do, for I love him dearly — and — and 
— if father knew he would half kill me. He 
has promised I shall marry old Stott the 
carrier, and I — " 

" What, Stott the Yorkshire carrier ? His 
waggons used to carry goods for father when 
I was quite a little one." 

" Yes, that's him ! And I can't ; and I 
won't ! He's old enough to be my father, 
and he's as ugly as sin ! " cried Milly in a 
passion of desperate earnestness. 

R 2 



244 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY, 

" Scarcely," said Muriel gravely, smoothing 
Milly's hair as she spoke, for the girl was 
still on her knees, "scarcely so ugly as the 
sin of deceiving your father. Speak plainly 
to him, or let Eobert do it ; or wait until you 
are older," and Muriel looked lovingly on the 
handsome cousin beside her, whose lofty but 
somewhat narrow brow was puckered with 
perplexity. 

"Eobert! Oh, that's just as bad. Aunt 
Bent has set her mind on his marrying Miss 
Barber and it's all for money on both sides. I 
declare it's enough to drive one mad ! I wish 
there was no money ! " 

" We should get on very badly without it, 
Milly. And suppose you and Eobert were to 
get married, how would you live without it? 
Until his articles are out, and he is admitted 
as an attorney, he cannot practise for himself. 
And unless you married with the approval of 
one side or the other, I see no chance of any- 
thing more than a clerkship for him. Then 
neither you nor Eobert have any experience 
of narrow means, or the discomfort they 



VyKSOWN ATTRACTIONS. 245 

cause. I am very sorry for you, Milly, and I 
daresay you love each other sincerely ; — but 
take my advice, and do nothing clandestine 
or you will be certain to repent one way or 
other." 

" Ah," said Milly, " it's all very fine for 
you, who never were in love, to talk this way. 
You would think differently if a man you 
loved with your whole heart came begging 
and praying you to marry him, to make 
certain of each other. It's easy to hold 
down the latch when nobody pulls at the 
string." 

A change came over Muriel's face, a 
change which extended to her voice as she 
replied soberly, "You are right, Milly, I 
have never been tried, and never expect to 
be ; if I were, I hope I should have strength 
to do my duty ; I hope so ; but as you say it 
is easy to hold down the latch when nobody 
pulls at the string. I have, however, seen 
something of a secret marriage, and I still 
advise you either to act openly, or to 
wait." 



246 FOBBIDDEN TO MARRY. 

And nothing more consolatory could Milly 
extract from her cousin beyond a promise not 
to betray her confidence ; a promise she knew 
would be faithfully kept, and so she told 
Kobert when she reported to him the advice 
she had received. 

But Milly did not know when she burdened 
Muriel with a secret what a weight it would 
be to her, or how the revelation had made 
her fear that Anna who shared her bed, 
and muttered strangely in her sleep had a 
secret too, a secret which was not confided 
to her keeping. 




CHAPTER XI. 

FOR THE BENEFIT OF HER HEALTH. 

^gUGUST was on the wane. Muriel had 
^^ begun to use her foot about the house 
experimentally. Her mother, whose chronic 
complaint was troubling her, sat in her 
easy chair in the back sitting-room, watch- 
ing her fit on Marion the body-lining of a 
new dress, when the drop-handle was turned 
from without, and whilst Marion rushed to 
hide her disarray behind a curtain, Mrs. Ban- 
croft walked in. She took in the situation 
at a glance, as Marion stopped short, curtain 
in hand. 

" Oh, so thah's started dress-making 
already. I should have thought thah might 
have waited till thah got back to Chester ; 
and thah'll have to go in October. Mrs. 
Hopley won't hear of a release, though I have 



248 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY, 

offered her a good round sum to obtain it ; 
I think there's some spite about it, she's so 
stiff. But she's a determined body when she 
is thwarted. It's not often she turns her 
back on hard cash. So there's no help for 
it, and thah'd best not tax thi strength 
beforehand." 

Muriel looked blank, and Marion crusty. 

"I am not taxing my strength, grand- 
mother. You would not have me sit idle," 
said the former. 

" Surely it won't hurt her to stand a few 
minutes ; I've waited long enough for a new 
dress," was the comment of the other. 

"And tliah would wait longer if I had my 
will, Marion. Thah thinks of no one but 
thyself and thy own adornment," said 
Mrs. Bancroft as she seated herself and 
loosed her black bonnet strings, regardless of 
the cnrl of Marion's long nose, as the home- 
truth fell from the old lips. 

" I've been thinking, Ellen," she began 
again, after a pause, still keeping a keen 
watch on her two tall grand-daughters, " that 



FOR THE BENEFIT OF HER HEALTH 249 

if you and Muriel went to Buxton for two 
or three weeks, the baths would set both 
of ye up." She raised her hand, seeing that 
Mrs. D'Anyer was about to speak. " Now 
don't thah make excuses, and say thah can't 
go. ril bear the expense, and / say you 
shall go. I've seen John, and settled it 
with him." 

" Well, mother, it's extremely kind of you, 
and if John's willing, I suppose I've no more 
to say than ' thank you,' " said EUen D'Anyer, 
adding with some little hesitation, " I t-hould 
think Anna and Marion could manage for a 
week or so without me ! " 

She was pretty sharply taken up, " Manage 
without thee, two great girls like thine ! 
Dos't ever reflect how old thah wert, when 
thah took on thyself to manage without me f " 

Opposition was silenced. Muriel's grati- 
tude shone in her eyes. She had heard 
Buxton vaunted as a very Bethesda for the 
cure of rheumatic patients, and she hoped 
her mother would leave all her aches and 
pains behind. 



250 FOBBIDDEN TO MABRY. 

Marion did not take it pleasantly. 
" Grandmother Bancroft thinks of nobody 
but you; and what's to become of my 
dress ? " she said to Muriel when her grand- 
mother was gone. 

" Oh, 111 finish that ; " and to keep her 
sister in a good humour she sat up working in 
their bedroom far into the night, when Marion 
herself was fast asleep, with Sara by her side. 

Marion was not the only one dissatisfied. 
Two cousins, Ensign Fawcett of the 10th, 
and Joe Bent, Corporal in the Eoyal Man- 
chester Volunteers, who were much more 
cousinly with Muriel than with each other, 
looked black at the announcement. Sam 
Bancroft grumbled ; — said his mother was 
always throwing her money away in that 
quarter. But that did not affect Sarah Ban- 
croft. Her conscience was at work, she was 
doing what she could to set it at rest. She 
answered him, " Son, thou art ever with me, 

and all that I have is thine ; " but Sam only 
rubbed his thighs and whistled. When had 
his mother quoted Scripture before ? 



FOR THE BENEFIT OF HER HEALTH 251 

Nevertheless he thought proper to bestir 
himself to escort his sister and niece at 
eight o'clock in the morning to the Swan 
coach-office, in Market-street Lane, where 
inside places in the new Buxton coach had 
been booked the day before, and their modest 
trunk taken — a trunk at which your modern 
greengrocer's wife contemplating a holiday 
would turn up her nose in scorn. But 
durability, not variety, was then the charac- 
teristic of middle-class attire, and plain 
narrow skirts took little room. 

" There's no depending on John D'Anyer 
to see them off at that hour, so don't you 
fail, Sam," his mother had said : but she was 
out in her reckoning. 

It would have touched John D'Anyer in 
his weak point to have been supposed cap- 
able of failing in " the courtesy of a gentle- 
man." Sam, who had no such weakness, 
dropped in at their early breakfast and found 
his brother-in-law urbanely prepared to do 
" his duty as a gentleman," filling his own 
pocket flask with home-made wine for the 



252 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. 

travellers, and carving beef for their sand- 
wiches with quite an air of self-content at 
his own dexterity and importance. He wel- 
comed Sam to partake of the good cheer 
upon the table with courtly hospitality, 
taking his brother-in-law's unwonted polite- 
ness quite as a gentlemanlike compliment; 
and Sam did not undeceive him. 

Punctuality, too, was a part of John's 
creed. " It will never do to keep the coach 
waiting," said he, interrupting kisses and 
good-byes ; " look at the clock ! " 

And precisely as the brazen fingers of the 
timekeeper in the tall polished walnut-wood 
case reached the quarter before eight, he 
had the lobby-door open, and ushered his wife 
and daughter out with ceremonious polite- 
ness. 

The distance was not great, there was no 
haste. They were in good time, though 
other passengers and their friends were 
waiting, and the coachman stood whip in 
hand, watching the piling of luggage on the 
roof of the coach, whilst the clerk within the 



FOR THE BENEFIT OF HER HEALTH 253 

basement office made out the way-bill for his 
scrutiny. They were in time, for the frowsy 
ostlers had not yet brought the horses round 
from the stables at the back, and the red- 
coated guard had not finished his glass or his 
flirtation with the smiling barmaid who 
waited his leisure. 

And there also were found the Ensign of 
the crack regiment, and the Corporal of 
Volunteers, both waiting to see their aunt and 
cousin off, and looking as if each thought the 
other's presence an affront to be personally 
resented. 

There was, however, the freshness of 
country air and his two-mile walk upon Joe 
Bent, whose paternal abode lay outside the 
town on the north-east, he came armed, not 
with a sword, but a nosegay and a small 
basket of grapes from the Grange, and he 
had a triumphant smile as he presented his 
early morning offering. 

Ensign Fawcett who had strolled down 
leisurely from Portland Place, and considered 
his own superlative presence quite a sufficient 



254 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY, 

compliment, stroked his smooth chin and 
endeavoured not to look daggers. 

Suddenly there was a bustle, the horses 
were there, there was a noisy backing to 
their places, a buckling of straps and harness. 
The guard looked to the priming of his 
blunderbuss, ladders were reared against the 
coach for the outside passengers, nimble ones 
mounted by the wheels, the " insides " were 
seated, coachman and guard in their places, 
the whip cracked, the horn was blown, John 
D'Anyer raised his hat, the last adieus were 
waved to them as the four bounding steeds 
bore them away from Swan Yard, round the 
corner, up Market-street Lane, along Lever's 
Eow and Piccadilly and the steep Bank Top 
to Shooter's Brow, where the town seemed 
to end and the country begin, for the last 
reeking lamp was left behind, and ti'ees and 
hedges faintly shadowed forth seemed to 
glide past like ghosts in the mist of the 
summer morn. There was a glimmer of 
water as they crossed the gleaming Medlock, 
and passed the pond at Ardwick Green, and 



FOR THE BENEFIT OF HER HEALTH 255 

then the fresh air came in through the open 
windows laden with flowery perfumes, and 
they felt as if home was already a hundred 
miles away, and they were driving on to 
regions remote and unknown. 

At least, so felt Ellen D'Anyer, whose 
journeyings had rarely extended beyond 
church or market, or the homes of mother 
and mother-in-law, and to whom the leaving 
home for a day was momentous. "John was 
so uncertain, and travelling such a risk." 

Muriel, who considered herself quite a 
traveller, inhaled the fresh air without a mis- 
giving. " Don't fear, mother, all will go well 
at home," she leaned forward to say; "I feel 
as if there was a blessing in the breeze, and 
health and happiness in store for both of 
us. And don't you remember what you used 
to tell me, that we were safe if God's holy 
angels had us in their keeping?" 

"Bless the girl! yes!" was the astonished 
answer, and no more was said. Indeed, 
Muriel felt disinclined to converse before their 
fellow passengers, an old man in a scratch 



256 FORBIDDEN TO JUBRT. 

wig over which a handkerchief was tied, 
and a couple of men whose talk was of 
"new fangled machines'' of some kind or 
other, which were apparently ia no great 
favour. 

It was one o'clock when they alighted, 
faint and weary, at the Grove Inn, Buxton, 
and were shown into a room with a sanded 
floor to wait until there was an ostler at 
liberty to convey their luggage to their 
destination and serve as a guide. And 
whether from overmuch business, or from a 
lack of business, or from the natural sloth of 
the animal, quite half an hour elapsed before 
the man turned up with a straw in his 
mouth and a horsey perfume about him, in 
response to the red-faced landlord's repeated 
call of " Tim, Tim, where are you ? " The 
coming of the coach was an evident intrusion 
on Tim's lazyhood. 

They had no wearisome search for 
lodgings. Sarah Bancroft had " seen to 
that." A shopkeeper on the Hall Bank, who 
did business with her, had comfortable rooms 



FOR THE BEAEFIT OF HER HEALTH. 257 

in readiness for them, and a dinner in 
preparation. 

"Ah, mother's rather hard at times, but 
she's very thoughtful, bless her ! " murmured 
Mrs. D'Anyer, as she removed her cloak and 
bonnet, glad to feel at rest. Their up-hill 
and down-dale journey had pretty well 
shaken appetite out of them. And rest was 
all that either wanted just then. 

Had either of them gone to a window and 
looked down upon the level road between the 
Bank and the Old Hall they might have 
descried someone then driving past in a 
luxurious open carriage pettishly making the 
same complaint: "wanting rest and finding 
none." 

It was not four o'clock yet, the heat and 
glare of the day had subsided, when Mrs. 
D'Anyer and Muriel sauntered forth before 
tea to see the town and search for the hot- 
baths; the former with the aid of her 
crutched stick, and Muriel's arm. 

They were speedily found at the end of the 

magnificent Crescent the Duke of Devonshire 
VOL. n. s 



258 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. 

had just built, and there something more was 
found which iSket Muriers blood in a tingle. 

A sedan chair was leaving the baths, from 
which a querulous feminine voice complained 
of the chairman's roughness. "The clumsy 
brutes have shaken me to pieces ! " 

The voice was that of Mrs. Wynne, and in 
attendance Muriel recognized her stolid maid 
Owen and — yes, Arthur Wynne himself. 

Eecognition was swift and mutual, but 
not swifter than the illumination of both 
countenances as Lieutenant Wynne, heedless 
of his mother's sharp "Who's that?" left 
the bearers to pursue their course to the 
aristocratic lodging-house in the Crescent, 
and advanced with quick step and outstretched 
hand to salute Miss D'Anyer, joy and surprise 
in every look and tone. 

Their hands met, but not as when on 
Chester's ancient walls ; since then the fillet 
had been torn from the eyes of both, and no 
affectation of composure could prevent the con- 
scious thrill which ran through nerves and brain. 

Yet there was nothing of undue familiarity 



FOR THE BENEFIT OF HER HEALTH. 259 

in the mauner of his approach, and though 
he put forth his hand it was with a sort of 
semi-apology, accompanied at the same time 
by a respectful, if slight, inclination of the 
head towards the elder lady. 

'•Will you pardon me. Miss D'Anyer, ifl 
venture to arrest your steps whilst I express 
my surprise at meeting you here ? I trust 
that ill-health has not driven you hither to 
recruit your strength ; " and Muriel saw that 
the words were no idle compliment. 

She had laid her soft palm in his, though 
with scarcelv the frank fearlessness of that 
first meeting on the Walls of Chester, and 
there was not the same unconscious steadiness 
of voice. 

" Only in part, sir ; I am better than I 

have been. It is my mother who seeks the 

benefit of the Buxton waters," and looking 

lovingly in the worn face of which her own 

was a far off reflex, she said, " Mother, you 

will be glad of this opportunity to thank 

Lieutenant Wynne for the life of your child." 

The wave of doubt, and surmise what 

s 2 



(€ 
(« 



26o FORBIDDEN TO MARRY. 

strange acquaintance Muriel had formed in 
her long absence, swept away from Mrs. 
D'Anyer's brow ; her hand went forth to his 
in perfect trust and satisfaction. 

Indeed I shall," she said with feeUng, 

you made me for ever your debtor, sir, 
when you bravely threw yourself between my 
beloved Muriel and the hoofs which else 
would have trampled her to death. The 
gratitude of all our family has gone with you 
ever since," and the mother's eyes were moist 
with emotion as she spoke. 

" Nay, nay," interposed he, " I only did 
what any man would have done under like 
circumstances. It was for me to be thankful 
I was at hand, and that the privilege of serv- 
ing Miss D'Anyer did not fall to a stranger. 
But I must not keep you standing. Allow 
me, madam." 

Substituting his strong arm for the 
crutched-stick on which Mrs. D'Anyer 
leaned, he assisted her up the steps to a 
seat in the open vestibule where friends 
waited for their friends, or bathers for their 



FOR THE BENEFIT OF HEB HEALTH, 261 

baths ; and in so doing gained an opportunity 
for longer conversation than could have been 
held whilst standing in the open air. 

Let us not ignore his politeness so far as 
to say this was intentional ; but impulse waits 
on thought and feeling, and both outrival 
electricity in speed. He had seen nothing 
of Muriel since he had left her at Mrs. 
Hopley's door, an object of »the tenderest 
compassion, the warmest admiration, the 
deepest respect. She had dismissed him, 
and forbidden his' return or inquiry, at the 
instigation of duty, not inclination ; and he 
had respected her motives with a degree of 
delicacy rare enough, and in so doing had 
bound the broad fillet of " honour " round 
impulse and emotion. It was that same 
honour which had restrained his pen when 
every other feeling in his breast bade him 
give his love and admiration words. Yet he 
had not gone forth intent on crushing the 
rising passion in his breast as incompatible with 
duty, but bent on moulding circumstances to 
his will, and making love and honour one. 



262 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY, 

How he might have acted had lie con- 
templated Muriel's removal from Chester in 
his absence there is no knowing ; there is a 
weak spot in every hero's breastplate. 

Certainly it was no slight shock when he 
went back in charge of a recruiting party 
to find that the imprisoned bird had flown, 
and that no one was able or willing to 
furnish other information. Mrs. Hopley was 
impenetrable as a stone. She regarded him 
as the root of her annoyance. The youngster 
who had reminiscences of a brio^ht shillinor 
admitted that, " Some folk had bin and made 
a row over her bad foot and carried her ojST 
in a po-chay." But that was all he got in 
exchange for a second silver portrait of 
King George. 

How many golden pictures of that 
monarch would he not have given to know 
that the "po-chay" had borne her no 
farther than the Yacht Inn, and that she 
was even then within the haven of its 
antiquated walls, preparing for a longer 
flight. It is scarcely likely he would have 



FOR THE BENEFIT OF HER HEALTH. 263 

looked down unmoved from the parapet of 
the Eastgate on the chaise tearing wildly 
under its arch, had he known who were its 
occupants, or that he had missed Muriel by 
a day — only a day ! 

And he would have been other than he 
was had he resigned himself to her dis- 
appearance and dismissed her from his mind. 
So far his love had met with opposition only, 
but in the obstinacy of manhood it reared its 
crest the higher at each impediment. A 
woman broods and broods over an unavowed 
attachment until it permeates her whole 
existence, especially if her lot be not an 
active one. A man has many distractions, 
or he can make them, but no distractions 
of the outer life could banish from the heart 
of a man of Arthur Wynne's temperament 
the image of the girl on whom he had once 
set his affections. He had no leisure for the 
indulgence of morbid melancholy, but he 
found himself pondering the ways and means 
of seeking the lost, and bringing his love 
to a favourable issue, much more fre- 



264 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY, 

quently than was compatible with his peace 
of mind. 

And now, called from his military duties 
to attend his invalid mother for a brief 
period, his good fortune had brought him 
face to face with the lost! He might 
disguise his delight beneath common con- 
ventional courtesy, but it was too real to 
permit another parting without some looking 
forward to another meeting. He " would not 
lose sight of her so hopelessly again ; that 
he was determined." 

On the otlier hand, Muriel was no less 
pleased to meet her " true friend " once 
again, than to introduce her hero, her 
" Prince Arthur " to her beloved mother, and 
the ribbons in her straw hat, the spots on 
Jier printed linen gown, or the sash which 
fluttered below her silken scarf, were not 
rosier than the face he looked down upon 
with such a light of satisfaction in his own. 

Every movement of the loved is of interest 
to the lover. There was a gap to be filled 
up for him since lie left Muriel in so pitiable 



FOR THE BENEFIT OF HER HEALTH, 265 

a condition at Mrs. Hopley's door. No 
wonder he lingered in the hope of infor- 
mation; and thougli she seemed strangely 
tongue-tied, Mrs. D'Anyer was not. So as he 
stood there before them in his military 
undress, in form, feature, bearing, the very 
model of a man and a gentleman, the 
conversational shuttlecock was kept in 
motion, shyly at first by Muriel, to whom 
her grandmother's warning recurred afresh, 
till at length restraint had worn off, and he 
had learned much with which the reader is 
already acquainted, not excluding the causes 
which had led to her removal from Mrs. 
Hopley's and her visit to Buxton. 

He ground his teeth in a spirit of anything 
but charity towards that queer priestess of 
fashion ; but, as it dawned upon him that 
the ball-dress casually named in reference 
to Muriel's long hours and night-work, when 
her foot required rest, must be one and the 
same with that airy blue gauze which had 
draped with such fatal lightness round his 
own mother's form, he recalled the scorn 



265 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY, 

and contempt with which Mrs. Wynne had 
spoken of the sweet girl before him as the 
'' mantua-maker's apprentice at work on her 
own robe." 

It was by no means a pleasant reminder^ 
whether he regarded the penalty his own 
mother had paid for her devotion to fashion, 
or her instrumentality in adding to the pain 
of Muriel, or the latter's legal subjection to 
the unfeeling old mantua-maker. And I am 
not sure the last was the least discordant 
note in the trio. A man may be deeply 
in love, and sensitive regarding inequality 
of rank at the same time, and in spite of 
chivalry, love and pride will have a fight 
for the mastery. 

" Cruelty ! Barbarity ! " he had inter- 
jected between the pauses of Mrs. D'Anyer's 
speech, but he listened with fresh interest 
as she proceeded to say, 

"It was never with my good-will that a 
child of mine was removed from our own 
hearth to be placed with strangers at a 
distance. It was all my mother's doing. 



FOB THE BENEFIT OF HEB HEALTH, 267 

and I could never fully penetrate her 
motives. She must certainly liave been 
misled in her estimate of Mrs. Hopley, for I 
know well she had Muriel's welfare at heart." 

" Oh, yes, I am certain of that," inter- 
rupted Muriel, not sorry to have this ex- 
planation made. 

"I only marvel Mr. D'Anyer gave his 
consent, considering his own excessive pride 
of birth," continued the mother more in 
private rumination than for the listener's 
ear, thougli she added as a climax, " and to 
think that she should be compelled to go back 
to serve so hard a taskmistress for more 
than another year almost breaks my heart ! " 

"And mine^'' was the vibrating echo in 
the breast of Arthur Wynne, who looked 
in Muriel's face and wondered how she could 
so calmly lay her hand on her mother's arm 
and say, " Never mind, mother dear, things 
may be better when I go back." But he 
came to the just conclusion that the girl 
was only hiding her own disquiet, in order 
to allay that of her parent. 



268 FORBIDDEN TO MABRY. 

Shortly after that he took his departure, 
but not before he had made known that his 
leave expired very shortly, having been 
granted solely to permit his attendance on 
Mrs. Wynne during her painful and tedious 
journey from Wales. He had moreover 
obtained permission to call on the ladies at 
their lodgings on Hall Bank. That gained, 
he strode forth into the open air, as if the 
ground was firmer under his feet than it 
had been an hour before. 

" Quite a gentlewoman, is Mrs. D'Anyer," 
was his mental verdict as he crossed the arc 
of the Crescent. 

" A very courteous and affable young 
gentleman," remarked Mrs. D'Anyer when 
Muriel returned to her side after making 
arrangements for their daily baths, and as 
if revolving the question in her own mind ; 
*' And so that lady in the chair was Mrs. 
Wynne! Do you think she recognized you?" 

*' I think not, mother ! But if she did, she 
would remember me only as Mrs. Hopley's 
apprentice, and as such pass me by." The 



FOR THE BENEFIT OF HER HEALTH 269 

admission was followed by a sigh, less for 
Mrs. Wynne's peculiarities than for her own 
grandmother's mistaken policy. 

" The son does not take after his mother, 
then," resumed Mrs. D'Anyer, as she bent her 
slow steps homeward by the aid of her stick 
and Muriel's arm. 

" Indeed he does not ! Both he and Major 
Wynne are true gentlemen. Yet I am very 
sorry for Mrs. Wynne. Mrs. Parry told us 
she was quite a cripple. She must feel it 
very keenly, to say nothing of the pain ; for 
she has been a great beauty and a leader of 
fashion. She can go to no more balls and 
races now." 

" Well, my dear, a woman at her time of 
life should be thinking of something more 
serious than balls and entertainments. Mrs. 
Wynne has spent her life in an unhealthy 
round of fashionable frivolity, so Mrs. Parry 
told your grandmother. The check may 
prove as salutary as it was sudden." 

" It may," assented Muriel briefly, as they 
began to ascend the Bank, and no more was 



270 FORBIDDEN TO MARRY, 

said, Muriel's thoughts having gone astray 
after the noble young officer to the haughty 
Mrs. Wynne, in wondering question what the 
latter would have thought or said could she 
have been present to see and hear the con- 
descension of her son. Then she dwelt on 
words, and tones, and looks of his, and 
perplexed herself with questionings whether 
her heart was a true or false interpreter ; 
and as she remembered her own blushes she 
blushed again to think he must have observed 
them. And then she took herself to task for 
feeling tongue-tied in his presence as she had 
never felt before. " He must have thought 
me strange or stupid," she argued. 

Whatever he did think it was not that. 
He crossed the Crescent to the spot where 
the sedan had entered the colonnade, more 
than ever convinced that in spite of dis- 
parity of rank, Muriel was the one woman 
in the world for him, and he must so shape 
circumstances as to make her his wife. They 
did need shaping he was conscious. He had 
little beyond his pay, and the pay of a lieu- 



FOR THE BESEFIT OF HER HEALTH. 271 

tenant offered no temptation to matrimony. 
Nor was his father so rich as to curtail his 
own income willingly for a son who married 
without his consent. And though his mother 
was amply endowed, her fortune was settled 
strictly upon herself, and he knew that she 
was so bent on seeing him the husband of his 
rich cousin, that unless Pauline ran off witli 
Sir Jenkyn, — of which he had some hope — 
lie could have no expectations in that quarter. 
True, the bulk of his mother's property des- 
cended to him on her demise, but he no more 
took that contingency into his calculations, 
than his succession to the Wynne baronetcy. 
The shaping of circumstances to his will was 
therefore not a simple matter. 



END OF VOL. II. 



**^ 






A " >* 



Sti" 



> ' 



-• * 






•» .- .» 



V 



-" t 



s •■►.. 



' t 






J* : * 






If .'f,